


Ella's Inferno

by elleflies



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Case Fic, Demons, F/M, Friendship, Hell, Hell Loops (Lucifer TV), Humor, Identity Reveal, Murder Mystery, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Original Character(s), Post-Season/Series 04, The Good Place (TV) References, Torture, dante deconstructed, dante's inferno, devil reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 70,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleflies/pseuds/elleflies
Summary: Ella's plan for a simple hike goes awry and turns into a journey into Hell. It seems Dante was onto something —  the only way out is through. She just needs to get past the Devil first. Meanwhile, Lucifer is embroiled in a hellish murder mystery, unaware that Ella is desperate for a way out.
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Ella Lopez, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 697
Kudos: 670





	1. Midway upon the journey of our life

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for my dearest darlingest JigglyKat and ZeeLinn. They've been enthusiastic about it the whole way. This fic is going to be long. It also pulls quite a bit from Dante's Inferno, but knowledge of the poem isn't necessary to read this fic at all.

“So how long are you watching Nacho?” Chloe asked. She was bent over, peering under the little metal table to get a closer look at Ella’s newest roommate. 

Ella grinned and adjusted her sunglasses. They’d wrapped a case earlier in the day, and celebratory lattes were called for. The coffee shop down the street from her studio apartment made the best, most amazing drinks. They’d gone all in on whipped cream and sprinkles, and Ella was a first-class sucker for sprinkles. Couple that with the gorgeous day, and it wasn’t a hard sell to drag Chloe out for coffee now that their perp was booked and behind bars.

All in all, an exhausting if excellent end to the day. 

“A little over a week,” Ella replied. “His dad is one of my forensics dudes, you know, Kyle. He and his husband are off to the Caribbean for a cruise, so Nacho got dropped off with Auntie Ella.” She reached down and scratched at the little dog’s head.

Nacho panted up at her from where he was sprawled under the metal table. He was a miniature Australian shepherd, so size wasn’t on his side, but he made up for it in personality. The remnants of a puppuccino still clung to bits of white fur around his face, but he had all the hallmarks of a happy, content pup. He wiggled under the table, his brown and tan coat rippling as he rolled over, exposing his white belly for scratches.

“Does he like kids?” Chloe asked. “Trixie keeps asking for a dog and with how much the two of us are gone…” 

Ella pulled her fingers out of Nacho’s fur and straightened. “I hear you. Kyle wouldn’t have been able to swing having Nacho if his husband didn’t work from home. But yeah, Nacho _loves_ kids. He’s a high energy little dude, and kids are pretty much the only things that will wear him out. Oh, hey, maybe I can swing by with him this weekend? He and Trix can romp around. Although, she’s almost a teenager. Does she even romp anymore or is it just eye rolls and angst?” 

“You’ve seen her.”

“Yeah, but she thinks I’m cool. You’re her mom.” 

Chloe rolled her head skyward and closed her eyes. 

“That bad, huh?” Ella asked. 

“It’s not terrible. But it’s like she turned thirteen and everything is the end of the world.”

“It’s puberty, Chloe. You guys will get through this. Trixie is a good kid.”

“A good kid whose hormones are all over the place.” Chloe planted her elbow on the table and leaned forward. “She blew up at Maze the other day. Told her she was no fun and it wasn’t fair that Maze wasn’t letting her stay up whenever she wanted to eat junk food.” 

“Whaaaaaat?” 

“She _never_ gets mad at Maze. Those two have been best friends for years and just… boom. There was yelling, tears, slamming doors. I didn’t see Maze for two days afterwards.” 

“Oh, man. Rough.” 

“They made up, but now Maze looks at Trixie like she’s a bomb that might go off at any moment.” 

“I mean…” Ella waved her hands around and shrugged. 

“Yeah,” Chloe replied, sounding exhausted. She rubbed her fingers against her forehead. 

The forensics department had been buried the past month. Multiple ongoing cases had the entire department running flat out. Chloe’s case was their big one: multiple victims, no clear suspects. Weeks of hard work had gone into the case before there was even the tiniest break. Ella’s timecard was looking pretty beefy from all the hours she’d spent in the forensics lab digging through information. As lead detective on the case, Chloe had taken the slow grind and lack of information personally. There’d been plenty of nights when Ella was on her way home late, and Chloe was still there, poring over paperwork and case files. 

Chloe should be celebrating; this was a big win, but other events were overshadowing the euphoria of a difficult case finally being put to bed. 

“Bummed about this being Ben’s last case?” Ella asked. 

“No. Well, kinda.” Chloe sighed. “I can’t keep a partner, can I?”

“Dude, you know this isn’t your fault. Family stuff came up. It _happens_.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. She situated her chin on her hand and stared past Ella. “It happens.” 

“Oh. _Oh_. Chloe, babe. That wasn’t your fault, either. We’ve talked about this. Lucifer leaving wasn’t your fault.” Ella fiddled with the straw of her iced coffee, pulling it in and out so it squeaked against the plastic lid. “He had family stuff or whatever; Amenadiel said he wasn’t able to get out of it.”

“I know. Logically, I know that none of this is my fault, that I’m not running my partners off, but you have to admit, I don’t have the best track record. It’s coming up on three years, and I still second-guess all the decisions I made.” 

“Still haven’t heard anything?” 

Chloe’s eyebrow went up as she scowled down at her latte. Ella raised her hands in surrender. “It’s a valid question. I still don’t get why going home to deal with family stuff means he can’t call or email. Nowhere is that remote.”

“No cell service in Hell,” Chloe muttered.

“Aww, I’ve missed the Hell talk. Dude was _committed_. But it’s still not your fault.” She slurped her iced coffee and revelled in the frozen goodness. The drinks at this place were little shots of happiness even when things seemed bleak. “Will Trixie be around tomorrow? I can bring Nacho by later in the day. He and Trixie can chase each other, and I know Nacho would love love love some snuggles.” 

Chloe shook her head. “Dan’s got her this weekend.” 

“Bummer.” Ella considered her mostly empty drink. She perked up, bouncing on her seat. “You and I should do something! Oh, oh, idea! I’m planning on taking the pup out for a long walk tomorrow morning at Vasquez Rocks. You should come!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ella. It’s been a long week.”

“Come on, Chlo. It’ll be fun. A two-mile hike, gorgeous scenery. You’ll love Vasquez Rocks. It’s super cool, they shot a bunch of _Star Trek_ episodes up there, and I totally plan on finding the spot where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn.” Ella mimed throwing a boulder over her head. 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Chloe said. 

“Come on, Chloe. You need to get out and have more fun. Come out for the hike. We’ll take amazing selfies of us living our best lives. I promise I’ll keep the Gorn talk to a minimum. We can grab drinks on the way back. I’ll be the designated driver. Let's get some Drunk Chloe action going on.” 

The corner of Chloe’s lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. “I have been putting in a lot of hours lately.” 

“You have,” Ella agreed. 

“It _has_ been a while since I’ve done anything fun.” 

Ella hummed. She was trying not to smile and failing miserably. 

“A hike sounds nice,” Chloe said. “I’m in.”

“Yes!” Ella pumped her fist into the air and bounced on her seat. Nacho snorted and shifted off her foot as it wiggled too much to function as a proper dog pillow. “We are going to have so much fun!

“No drinks though. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“It’s a great idea! Drunk Chloe is fun Chloe.”

“Drunk Chloe makes stupid decisions.”

“The _best_ decisions.” 

Chloe shook her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She was grinning at least, so Ella counted it as a win. Chloe could use all the distractions she could get considering Ben, Chloe’s partner of two years, had a shiny new job waiting for him at a precinct out on the East Coast. His parents were aging and needed help, so it was understandable, but it still sucked. Chloe and Ben had been a good team. Nothing anywhere close to what Chloe and Lucifer had been, but Ben was easy-going and cognizant enough of Chloe’s experience at the precinct to let her lead and to tread carefully around certain topics. 

Main topic being the M.I.A. Lucifer Morningstar. 

Ella still hadn’t figured out what went down there. It had gone from kidnapping and stress to one of the weirdest, most bizarre murder scenes she’d ever processed. Lucifer was gone shortly after, and if she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn he had something to do with the massive pile of bodies found in the Mayan. 

It had very quickly been labeled a cult killing, and the feds swooped in before the scene was even done being processed. It was big enough that it featured on the national news. By the time Ella looked up, Lucifer was gone and Chloe was a mess. 

Three years on from Lucifer’s departure, and Chloe still wasn’t quite over it. It was a wound that, while mostly healed, was still there. Ella was still pissed he left without saying goodbye to anyone but Chloe. She’d been his friend, too, and he’d vanished with only Amenadiel and Chloe having any inkling of where he’d gone. 

If—when—she saw him again, she was going to slap his stupid handsome face and tell him what a gigantic idiot he was.

Nacho huffed beneath the table and shifted. His collar jingled as he shook himself. He tried to scramble up her legs, and Ella was forced to push her chair back so the fuzzy dog had enough room to hop into her lap. His little face broke into a wide doggy grin, tongue lolling out as Ella scratched behind his floppy ears. 

“Trixie isn’t going to want to let him go,” Chloe said, gesturing at Nacho. “She’s going to meet him, and her campaign for a dog is going to ratchet up into high gear.”

“ _I_ don’t want to let him go!” Ella grinned at the little dog and scratched his face as he panted up at her. “You’re such a good boy, I’d keep you if I could. Yes, I would. Yes, I would, you little goober. Do you wanna go to the park tomorrow? Do you? We’ll go to the park, and you can chase the birds. We’ll have so much fun.” Chloe coughed and tried to hide her smile in her latte. “What?” Ella asked as Nacho licked across her chin. 

“Oh, nothing, maybe I should give the two of you some space.” 

“Awwww, maybe you should get a dog. Something to get mushy over.” 

“I think I’m good,” Chloe said. She frowned at her phone as it dinged.

“Problem?” Ella asked. 

“Not really. Just Trixie misplacing something again. I’m gonna head, get her squared away before Dan picks her up. Sorry to leave you hanging.”

“It’s no big. Me and Mr. Nacho are gonna head home and get ready for our outing tomorrow, and, girl, brace yourself, cause I’m showing up at your door at 7 a.m. sharp, and you’d better be ready.”

Chloe nodded and took one last sip of her latte. She gathered up her phone and wallet and with a wave headed back to her car. 

Ella settled back into the seat, her arms full of dog. She had the whole evening of couch surfing with her temporary best friend while eating garbage takeout and watching her shows. 

And tomorrow she and Chloe would try to forget about the horrors of the job.

* * *

She and Nacho had left her apartment just as the sun was rising and managed to arrive at Chloe’s apartment with time to spare. Thankfully, it was the weekend so Los Angeles traffic wasn’t as monstrous as it could be, but Santa Clarita was still a bit of a drive. 

This hike was going to be fun, and Ella wanted to enjoy it when the sun wasn’t directly overhead and frying her to a crisp. 

Plus, getting out and doing an actual excursion felt amazing. She’d been cooped up in the forensics lab for the past week, and the stir-craziness was starting to set in. She was a city girl through and through, but there was something refreshing about getting out into nature. 

Chloe definitely needed it. If anyone was wound tight, it was one Chloe Decker. She slumped in her seat next to Ella, Starbucks coffee firmly in hand and stared out the window in a daze. It had been way too long since they’d done anything fun. Tribe nights were still a thing, but Linda was busy with Charlie, and Maze was out of town quite a bit, either bounty hunting or traveling with Eve. 

That left Ella and Chloe to make their own fun, which Ella was absolutely determined to do. Chloe was going to have _fun_. That was definitely a thing that was going to happen. 

It was early enough that the parking lot wasn’t full, but judging by the number of cars already there, it was going to be a busy day at the park. Nacho practically vibrated in the backseat, his tail wagging like he was about to take off, and he’d managed to squash his face in-between the window and Chloe so he was breathing hotly into Chloe’s ear. 

Ella parked and rummaged around for her backpack: a few plastic bags, two bottles of water, her wallet, keys, and phone all got stashed away. Nacho whined and pushed himself over the center console so he was planted firmly in Chloe’s lap. 

“Aw, Chloe, you made a friend. And you didn’t even have to do anything!”

Ella grinned at Chloe’s withering glance and slipped out of the car. She opened Chloe’s side and failed at stifling a laugh as Nacho wriggled on Chloe. They managed to get his leash clipped to his collar, but it took both of them way too much time to corral the overexcited dog. 

They set out, following the signs towards the main two-mile loop that would take them around the rock formations that were so familiar due to way too much entertainment consumption.

Summer was starting to head into fall, and the landscape was awash in every shade of brown imaginable. Some green peeked out here and there, but for the most part the California scrub had shriveled away into a strange sort of dead beauty. 

There were plenty of people out hiking, some by themselves, some with dogs, some in groups. Ella smiled and said hello to those she passed. It was a heavily trafficked trail, but the path was wide enough that she didn’t feel like she was going to mow anyone down as Nacho plowed forward, pulling against the leash.

“What do you think?” Ella asked, as the main rock formation loomed above them. The slabs jutted out of the ground at a slanted angle, giving the landscape an alien feel. 

“It’s definitely familiar,” Chloe replied. 

“It’s iconic. There’s so much Hollywood history here!”

Chloe scrunched up her nose.

“Oh yeah, your mom is Hollywood history isn’t she?”

Chloe laughed. It was sharp and short. She’d been so quiet on the drive up and the walk so far. Ella filled the silence with chatter, but now that they were here it was even more evident how difficult it was for Chloe to shake this last case and her partnerless status. 

Ella bent over and scratched Nacho’s head. “See that, Nacho,” she said, gesturing at the formation. “That’s called a hogback. All the soft rock eroded away, and the hard rock is what’s left. Pretty cool, huh?” 

Nacho snorted and sniffed at a scrubby bush, lifting a hind leg to leave his calling card, before trotting on with his little tail wagging in fervor. 

“You appreciate my varied and esoteric knowledge, right, Chloe?” Ella batted her eyes at her friend and grinned. 

Chloe bit her lip and smiled. “Oh sure, I look at rocks and can’t get enough. Geology. Whew. So sexy.” 

“That’s right. You’ll head home with the best fangirl-inspired geology lesson someone who knows nothing about the subject can give.” 

“It’ll impress all the boys.” 

“Come with me to the next Comic Con and the boys will be falling at your feet. You’ll be their rock goddess.” 

“Only if I get to throw rocks at them,” Chloe replied. Her smile grew as the stress started to vanish from around her eyes. Even her shoulders looked less weighed down. 

“I can arrange that. Pretty sure there’s a few geeks I know who’d love to have a gorgeous woman throw rocks at them.”

Chloe shook her head. “You live a strange life, Ella.” 

“Oh man, I don’t even know how I manage it. Friends back in Detroit had a running joke that the fae were trying to lure me away. I always find the strangest situations. Like defusing a bomb in a nightclub while high on molly and cocaine. Who does that even happen to?”

“Us, it seems. It’s not like my life has been normal.”

“Nope, but would you even want normal? You’d go nuts if you were bored.” 

“I don’t know, maybe it would be soothing.” 

“Soothing,” Ella replied, deadpan. “You’d commit suburban homicide, and we’d be investigating you.” 

“I don’t know that it would go that far.” 

“Oh, please, underneath that stern cop exterior, you’ve got a wild side. I’ve seen you drunk. Plus, you were partners with Lucifer for years. Don’t even attempt to tell me you like boring.” 

Chloe scrunched up her nose. Ella smirked at her, knowing there was no good reply. She’d been friends with Chloe way too long to buy whatever it was she was trying to sell. It was easy, after the hard cases, to want a more normal life. A life that didn’t include dead bodies and the worst of humanity. Ella had even considered getting out a time or two, but at the end of the day she liked what she did, as weird as it was. 

Maybe the fae were trying to lure her away. She was just too strange for this world. She’d get a little too weird one day and slip between the cracks and no one would see Ella Lopez again. 

She _really_ needed to lay off the urban fantasy novels she liked to read before bed.

They lapsed into silence, a comfortable one this time. The path was wide and easy to traverse. Nacho tugged at his leash and sniffed at every plant and rock he came across. He looked back at Chloe and Ella from time to time to make sure they were still there. 

A mile into the walk, they veered off onto a side trail. It cut away from the main formation and snaked down a small hill, lined with boulders. Nacho found the biggest one and jumped on top. He pricked his floppy ears, stuck out his chest, and panted happily at them. 

“You know you want a dog,” Ella told Chloe as she snapped a few pictures to send off to his owners. 

“Nope. I’m good.” 

“You sure you can resist those puppy dog eyes?” 

“Totally sure. I’ve got enough going on in my life. I don’t need a dog added to it.” 

“Oh, come on, maybe you can practice with Nacho. We’ll take him to the park; dogs are a great dude magnet.” 

Chloe raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know?” 

“Television?”

The patented Decker eyeroll joined the raised eyebrows. “That’s a horrible way to meet men, Ella.” 

“I’ve met a few people at the dog park. There’s this one guy—he’s super old—but his standard poodle is amazing. He’s got the poofy poodle cut and is the most anxious dog I’ve ever met in my life. He thought Nacho was terrifying. But you know, a few good butt sniffs and they were besties in no time at all.”

“So you want me to go to the dog park, with Kyle’s dog, to pick up old men?”

“I mean, when you put it that way... There were some hotties there. Who knows, you might click.” 

“Ella. We’ve talked about trying to set me up.” 

“Yeah, but it’s not setting you up if you’re meeting them on your own.” 

“I’m fine as I am. I don’t need to date anyone. The last time you pushed me towards someone it didn’t work out well.”

Ella ducked her head at the irritation in Chloe’s voice. They’d talked about this more than once. Ella’s tendencies towards matchmaking sometimes ran away with her, and she’d forget about the very real consequences of meddling. 

Pierce was a specter between them. A poor choice on Ella’s part to push Chloe towards their superior, and an experience that had blown up in Chloe’s face. How was Ella supposed to know that Pierce was a crime boss masquerading as a LAPD officer? Who could blame Chloe for taking a month’s leave and indulging in a European vacation after her fiancé tried to kill her. And then, after Lucifer’s departure a year later, Chloe’s interest in dating plummeted to zilch and stayed that way. 

She didn’t mean to push Chloe, but sometimes she overstepped boundaries and didn’t realize what she’d done until she was way past them. 

Chloe blew out a harsh breath and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ella. I know you want to help. I’m not—I’m not ready.” 

“Is there anything I can do?” 

“Give me time?” 

Ella nodded. “I can do that.” 

Chloe stopped and looked upwards. Ella tugged Nacho to a halt and leaned against a large boulder on the path, wiggling her shoulders so her back was braced against it. She fiddled with the end of the leash while Nacho sniffed at the base of the rock. “I tried dating,” Chloe said, still not looking at Ella. “A few months after Lucifer left. It wasn’t like we were ever together. You know, together together, so I thought I should move on. Find someone else. I downloaded some apps, talked to a few guys and went on some dates.” 

“It didn’t go well?” Ella asked. 

“No, it went fine. I had a good time. I even went on a second date with one guy, but they were just, I don’t know, too normal? I’m not even sure that’s the right word for it.” She huffed, frustrated. “They wouldn’t understand, and I can’t explain.”

Chloe’s face twisted up, and she clutched at her elbows. Ella swallowed, feeling a catch in her throat. This was supposed to be fun, something to take Chloe’s mind off everything going on, and instead Ella had floundered her way into a well-intentioned minefield. 

“Would you—” Ella paused and tried to find the best phrasing for what she wanted to ask. “If Lucifer came back, would you reconsider?” 

Chloe sighed and scuffed her shoe through the dirt. “Probably.” 

Ella raised her eyebrows. 

Chloe pursed her lips. “Okay, yeah, if he came back I’d want to try. We spent so much time dancing around each other and then when things were okay between us he had to leave. We never had the chance to find out what we’d be like together.” 

“We should figure out where he is,” Ella said, resolute and slowly getting excited. “You’re a fantastic detective, and I’ve got some great forensics skills. Plus, I know people. Between you and me, we can drag him back.” 

Chloe shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. He’s not coming back.” 

“Just you watch,” Ella said. “I’m going to track him down and drag him back.”

A flicker of a grin flashed across Chloe’s face.

“You told everyone he’s in Hell. Well I say, _Hell schmell_. I’ll throw him at your feet. Behold! Your dumbass!”

Chloe laughed. “He’d probably like that.” 

“Who wouldn’t?! Being thrown at the feet of the total babe that is Chloe Decker. Life goals there.” 

“Right. More like a middle-aged sad sack.” 

“Nope. Total babe. A super hottie.” 

Nacho growled and lunged away from the boulder he’d been sniffing at. 

Ella scrambled for a grip on the leash as she stumbled after him. He didn’t go far, dropping into a crouch, body tense, as he peered under a nearby bush and growled. 

“Hey, boy, what’s the matter?” she said, giving his leash a tug. She looked over her shoulder at Chloe, who looked just as confused as she felt. 

Nacho continued to growl. He lowered his body onto the dirt, his growl turning into a snarl. “Hey, Nacho, knock it off and I’ll give you treats and skritches.” She tugged harder.

He leapt towards the bush, straining against the leash and snarling with all of his might. 

The bushes rustled, and a bird hopped out a foot in front of Nacho. It tilted its head left and right, clearly eyeballing the angry dog. It was about the size of a crow, but with a blue head and black-and-cream undersides. It was close enough that Ella could see the small white feathers above its eyes, giving the bird the impression of having eyebrows. 

“Hey, dude, it’s just a scrub jay,” Ella told the little dog. She crouched down next to him and stroked his tense body. “You’ve seen these guys. Remember? We went to visit Abuela and she had one hopping around her feeder.” 

The scrub jay jumped through the leaf litter, pushed out his white breast, and chattered loudly at the dog. 

Nacho lunged at the bird, howling. His lips pulled back in a snarl, and white teeth flashed as he tried to pry himself out of Ella’s grip. 

“Nacho! Stop! Heel! Come on, it’s just a bird!” Ella pulled harder, dragging the small dog towards her. She almost had him in arms reach when the metal clip attaching the leash to Nacho’s collar snapped. 

The dog was off like a shot, diving into the underbrush and running as fast as he could, his angry barks carrying on the wind. 

“Nacho!” Ella shouted. She gaped at the snapped metal of the clip as her heart plummeted into her stomach. 

Chloe gasped behind her, but Ella didn’t hesitate. She dashed after Nacho. She pushed her way through the brush, ignoring the twigs and leaves that snagged at her hair. She rushed after the dog, running down a faint trail that swerved away from the hogbacks behind her. 

“Ella!” Chloe shouted from behind. 

If something happened to Nacho… He was her responsibility. She’d promised his dads that she’d take care of him. If they came home and Nacho was still out here, lost and alone, she wouldn't be able to face herself, let alone Kyle and his husband. 

The trail snaked around boulders and dipped down in between two small, rocky hills. She followed the sound of barking, hoping she wouldn’t twist an ankle on the uneven ground. She shouted after Nacho and prayed that he would give up and come trotting back, pleased with his own recklessness. 

Chloe’s voice echoed her own, and the sound of her feet hitting the ground as she ran made it clear she wasn’t too far behind Ella. 

The Big Guy probably had other things to worry about, because Nacho kept going. She caught brief glimpses of him as he darted along the trail, but her shouting did nothing.

Ella stopped under a rocky overhang. Her side was killing her, and she was out of breath. Hands on her knees, bent over while Nacho ran farther into the park was not how she envisioned this day going. She wheezed, trying to catch her breath, knowing she needed to keep going, but her body was currently opposed to the idea.

Chloe skidded to a stop next to Ella, barely out of breath. “Which way?” she demanded. Ella sucked air into her lungs and gestured towards the path she’d last seen Nacho charging down. Chloe took off, calling Nacho’s name at the top of her lungs. 

It didn’t take long for Chloe to disappear into the scrub.

Ella squeezed her eyes shut. She considered herself fit and did her best to work out on a regular basis, but Chloe was way beyond her in the physical fitness arena. She’d be cheering Chloe on if she wasn’t feeling so terrified at the prospect of losing Nacho out here. She needed him to be safe.

Chloe’s voice echoed over the hillside. Ella opened her eyes and tried to slow her breathing. 

Nacho yelped in the distance. 

Ella tugged the straps of her backpack and was about to set off when something glinted at her. She frowned at the rock face next to her. 

Scratches in the rock just above knee level glinted again. 

She needed to go. Chloe needed help tracking down Nacho, but it was as if she couldn’t look away from the rock face, as if it wanted her to see. She crouched next to the scratches, the forensic scientist in her thinking that they looked like someone had drawn some sort of design into the stone with their fingernails. _Or their claws_ , the part of her brain that secretly enjoyed watching _Supernatural_ chimed in. 

Ella ran her fingers over the petroglyph and shivered. It almost felt like static discharge when she touched it. The petroglyph looked like a slanted backwards L with a spiral coming off the back of it, clearly something someone had taken the time to etch into the rock. It was old and weathered and barely visible. 

It had to be mica in the rock. That was the only explanation for the glinting. Except the rock face was in shadow and there was no illumination from what she could tell. 

Chloe shouted again, but her voice was distant and tiny, like she was a great distance off rather than just around the hill. 

The petroglyph buzzed under Ella’s fingers. She tried to stand, but her legs wobbled and gave out. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, and her vision narrowed until all she could see was the shining glyph. Darkness encroached, and Ella’s hold on consciousness slipped away.


	2. For the straightforward pathway had been lost

Ella blinked. She knew it was a bad idea as soon as her eyelids fluttered open. Bright light ratcheted up the pounding in her head to almost unbearable proportions. She groaned and shifted onto her side. 

The straps of her backpack pulled against her shoulders and dug into her ribs, exacerbating her full body ache. Her muscles screamed and her bones felt like they wanted to be buried in the ground right now. She threw an arm over her face as the sun blazed overhead. She could feel the heat of it against the exposed skin of her arm. 

When she managed to open her eyes, she immediately regretted it. She squinted up at the rock outcropping with its barely visible petroglyph. She couldn’t hear Chloe. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything. The landscape was still and silent, not even the leaves on a nearby scrubby brush moved. 

“Chloe?” Ella croaked. The syllables of Chloe’s name came out garbled and barely audible as she forced her mouth and throat to work. She swallowed, licked chapped lips, and tried again. “Chloe?!” 

Silence. 

Perfect, complete silence. 

Ella rolled onto her hands and knees and coughed. She wobbled her way to her feet, mostly using the rock face to hold herself up. She hung off the rock and her fingers tingled from the heat radiating off of it. She frowned. It was in shadow before she’d passed out. Just how much time had passed? It couldn’t have been that long; Chloe would have noticed something. 

She coughed again and winced at the jets of pain that shot up her throat. 

Water. She needed water. Forget sprinkles and whipped cream. Water. Water was where it was at. Why had she never truly embraced how wonderful water was before?

She slipped a strap off her shoulder and slung the backpack forward. She fumbled for her bottle of water and slurped the liquid down as fast as she could.

She rubbed a hand across her face once the bottle was empty. It came away dusty and covered with dirt dislodged from her nose and mouth. “Gross,” she muttered. She took her hair out of its ponytail, shook it out and made a face at the dirt and debris that fell out. Her fingers caught on tangles as she brushed it out with her fingers. She pulled her hair back into a haphazard ponytail. She’d deal with how messy it was once she was back at the car. 

Ella shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun and squinted down the path towards where she’d last seen Chloe.

She managed a few shaky steps, her head throbbing in the bright sun. She needed to find Chloe and Nacho. She was so done with this trip, and she couldn't resist the sweet siren call of air conditioning and a Slurpee. 

“Chloe!” she shouted. “Hey, Chloe! Nacho! Anybody! Hey, this isn’t funny...” 

Silence. She stood in the middle of the path, surrounded by boulders and scrub, in a park full of tourists enjoying the day, and the only thing that greeted her was silence. 

“What the Hell, Decker!” Ella shouted. “You’d better not have left me here!” 

Chloe wouldn’t do that, not even as a joke. So there had to be some other explanation. Maybe Chloe was looking for Nacho, she could have twisted an ankle, or maybe she thought Ella was right behind her. 

She pulled out her phone, intending to call Chloe or Linda or _someone_ and cry about how awful this day was, but just her luck: no cell service. She huffed, stuck her phone back in her pocket, and started picking her way back down the path towards where she’d last seen Chloe. 

“Chloe! Nacho!” Ella shouted. “Come on. Let’s go home! Nacho! Treats! I’ll give you all the treats. I’ll buy you all the iced coffee! Chloe!”

She edged down the trail, still hoping the Big Guy would pull a miracle out of his sleeve, and Nacho would come charging back at her, pleased as punch about his adventure. Even better, Chloe would round the bend, Nacho in her arms. 

Rustling caught her attention, and Ella’s heart leapt as the branches of a close-by bush moved as if something was in them. 

_Grab the dog, get out of here_ , she reminded herself. She adjusted her backpack so it was tight against her back and crouched, ready to lunge for Nacho. 

The bushes rustled again. Ella’s muscles ached in protest as she tensed up, ready to pounce.

A sleek coyote stepped out of the bush. 

Ella blinked and jerked, alarms ringing in her head as her brain cataloged the details as if on autopilot. Large yellow eyes, a long tongue lolling over sharp canines, a hungry expression… 

The coyote licked its chops. 

Ella yelped and backpedaled. 

Straight into a raccoon. 

The raccoon stood on its hind legs and screeched. It waved its paws at her and bared its teeth. Its giant, angry chipmunk impression was spot on, and had she been seeing this in a zoo, she would have been impressed. 

Ella backed away, her body quaking with fear and shock. She held up her hands as if they would do any good if an attack came. “Hey, guys,” she said, glancing between the angry raccoon and the still coyote. “It’s cool. Didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll just keep going. You can keep doing your coyote and racoon thing, and I won’t be in the way.” 

She took a step back. 

The coyote took a step forward. 

“So, uh, I didn’t know raccoons and coyotes were buds.” She forced out a laugh. It came out high and squeaky. “Learn something new every day.” 

The coyote’s head dipped. It pinned its ears to the back of its skull. Ella watched its lips pull back and its teeth flash; she blinked stupidly. A frisson of fear shot down her spine. 

The raccoon shrieked. The coyote lunged. Ella bolted. 

She threw herself down the trail, all of her aches and pains forgotten. Her heart hammered in her chest as her feet churned up rocks and dirt and her arms pumped. She barely registered where she was running. She floundered through sage and foxtails and got into a brief wrestling match with a sapling before charging on.

All she wanted to do was get away. She was a city girl. She wasn’t going to face coyotes alone in the desert. And a raccoon? It probably had rabies. No way. No how. She was going to get out of here, wait in the car until Chloe showed up, and then drive home and never leave the city again. Day hikes were a thing of the past. 

Ella slowed to a light jog once she realized the coyote wasn’t right behind her and that the raccoon was nowhere to be seen. 

She clutched at her arms and tried to calm her nerves as the adrenaline wore off, leaving her cold and shaking. “Okay, Ella, calm down. Coyotes don’t hurt people. They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.” She shivered. Funny how animals that were supposedly afraid of people suddenly wanted to hang out with her. They probably thought she looked like a snack. Too bad she went hiking and not clubbing, she’d rather prefer to look like a snacc to human wildlife. 

She put her hands on her knees and breathed, focusing on the in and out of her breath, slowing her heart and calming down so she could hike out of here. 

Wherever here was. 

Scrubby hills rose up around her. She’d stopped running next to a fuzzy cactus that was about four feet tall. It’s twisted arms were covered in spikes, and the part of her brain that had avidly read the Wikipedia page for Vasquez Hills and its plant and animal life yesterday evening chimed in with “Cholla” and an additional warning of “No Touchy.” She stared at the cactus as a focal point as she tried not to panic. 

She’d fled the coyote and wasn’t entirely sure where she was in relation to the trail. She’d need to backtrack, as much as she was able to. She licked her dry lips “Okay. You got this. Easy peasy, Ella. Just walk back the way you came, and the coyote will probably be gone. His rabid raccoon friend is probably somewhere else. It’s no big. Just get back to the car, Chloe will show up, and we’ll go home. Come on, Ella, you can do this.” 

Ella took a deep breath, clapped her hands together, and cringed at the way the sound carried in the rocky hills. It was still strangely silent and empty, and it was giving her a massive case of the heebie-jeebies. Not just because of the silence; it felt like she was being watched. And she couldn’t shake the sensation. 

She backtracked over rocky, uneven ground, amazed that she’d come so far over it without twisting an ankle and becoming coyote chow.

* * *

The coyote and raccoon were nowhere to be seen, thankfully, but she couldn’t seem to find her way back to the trail. She walked and walked and walked. She shouted for help. She checked the nonexistent signal on her phone, and still she was lost. 

It felt like hours later when she threw herself down on the ground and dug through her backpack for her last bottle of water and the bag of M&M’s she’d squirreled away as a post-hike treat. 

Her bottle of water was hot and her M&M’s were a melted glob of goo. 

She ate them without complaint. 

Ella was tired and sweaty under the unrelenting sun. She could practically feel her skin sizzling under the heat and UV rays, but shade wasn’t something she was finding much of. 

If she was lost out here, she needed to conserve her resources. Hopefully Chloe had finally noticed she was gone and alerted the park rangers. Plus, she had the keys to the car. Chloe would have to figure out she was missing at some point. She had a giant detective brain; she noticed details. She’d figure out Ella was lost and needed help.

She perched awkwardly on a small rock, one of the few places to sit that wasn’t sharp and pointed, and dug the toe of her shoe into the hard ground. Had she wandered into some off limits government controlled area? There were enough military installations in California that it was a possibility. It didn’t look like an artillery range. Not that she really knew what one of those looked like, but everything was undisturbed so she didn’t think she’d have to worry about bombs being dropped on her head. But where was this? Why was it so easy to wander off the trail and not be able to find it again? She stuck her elbow against her thighs and her chin in her hand and sighed. 

The bushes to her right rustled. Ella’s muscles tensed, ready to push herself upright and bolt should she need to.

A scrub jay hopped out of the bush. It cocked its head one way and then the other as it fixed its gaze on her. 

“Thanks,” Ella told the bird. “I needed that heart attack.” 

A deep boom echoed over the landscape. Ella flinched and ducked, her hands covering her head in an instinctive reaction. 

The scrub jay squawked in alarm and took flight, its wings beating furiously as it shot over Ella’s head. 

A towering column of dust rose into the air. Ella blinked. She scrambled to her feet and gaped at the cloud of dust moving towards her. 

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, no.” She turned and ran, hoping to find some sort of cover.

* * *

The storm overtook her before she could find shelter. 

A strong wind blew particles of dust through the air. The blue sky dissipated into red with sunlight barely filtering through. 

Ella stopped long enough to pull her hoodie out of her backpack. She tugged it on, zipped it up and pulled the hood over her hair. The only thing she had to cover her nose and mouth was her t-shirt. She pulled the collar up over her nose, put her head down, and kept walking. Visibility was limited, and she focused on placing one foot in front of the other, glancing up from time to time to ensure she wasn’t going to walk off a cliff or into a cactus. The trail was long since gone. It couldn’t even be considered a deer path anymore. She was wandering through the landscape hoping to bump into something man-made. Or even better, an actual person. 

Chloe was probably worried sick. First Nacho ran off and then Ella disappeared on her. Now there was a freaking dust storm. Since when did California get _those_? 

“It’ll be fun. A nice day hike. So relaxing,” Ella muttered under her t-shirt. “Jokes on me. I am not feeling _relaxed_.” She kicked a loose stone into a pile of cactus. 

Once she was out of here, she was going to call in sick for the week. Or maybe use some of her vacation time to mummify herself in her blankets. She wasn’t going to budge. Netflix, delivery, and her bed. It’s what dreams were made of. 

Something squealed and chittered, a rock went tumbling in the distance. 

Ella’s heart leapt in her throat, and she looked around wildly for where the sound was coming from. She could barely see three feet in front of her thanks to the dust. What was visible was scrubby bushes, cactus, and rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. 

A chirp carried on the wind. _Chirrup-Chirrup_. 

Ella held her breath and scanned the bushes.

The scrub jay hopped out.

He landed at her feet and twitched his wings so they were tucked tightly against his back. He chirped and clicked and then hopped out of sight. 

“Dude. You gotta stop doing this to me,” Ella told him. 

The bird chirped back at her through the dust. 

Having few other options, she followed him. He hopped and fluttered around bushes and boulders until a small copse of trees was visible through the dust. They nestled at the foot of a hill and looked like an inviting spot to stop and take cover, to see if she could get a cell signal and maybe some help out of here. 

What Ella had thought was a group of trees turned out to be one. It was old and gnarled, and on any other day she’d be delighted to find and explore it, maybe even take a few pictures to post online later. Today, she only felt relief. She climbed its twisted branches, found a crook that would serve as hopefully coyote-proof place to rest, and pulled her hoodie tight around her. 

She wiggled her back against the rough bark and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Still no cell service, and the battery was only at 50 percent.

She coughed. She was cold and alone and torn up about Nacho. He was an energetic little dog who liked treats, and toys, and snored in his sleep. There was no way he was going to be okay out here. Not with a freaking coyote running around looking for a snack. Or the raccoon that acted like he wanted to mug her. 

He had to be back with Chloe. There was no way she’d abandon him. There was no way Chloe would abandon her. 

The dust didn’t let up. It swirled through the air, coating everything it touched. Every breath she took through her t-shirt was labored and loud in her ears. It was still so quiet, eerily so. Dust coated her tongue. There was a slight tang of sulphur to it that had her wrinkling her nose. 

Ella tucked her face against the rough bark. Visibility was poor in the red haze. She could see maybe six feet out from the tree she was taking shelter in, but no more than that. 

She shivered and tried to tamp down on the feeling of fear and loneliness. Stuck in a tree in a freak dust storm and oh yeah, a coyote and a raccoon had formed their own street gang and had tried to jump her. She knew California was going to be strange when she packed up and moved from Detroit, but no one had mentioned anything about wildlife thugs. 

Rest was the furthest thing from Ella’s mind. She wasn’t even tired. She didn’t want to eat or drink or sleep. She clung to the tree and tried to remember what fresh, clean air was like. 

A flutter of wings above, followed by a harsh squawk of a bird. Ella peered up into the tree, through the swirling dust and the quavering leaves, trying to see what made the sound. 

The leaves rustled and the scrub jay flew out of the tree and disappeared into the haze.

Ella tucked her face back into her arm, shielding her eyes from the dust. Her heart had leapt at the sight of the bird. It was so quiet and still that she was desperate for the noise of anything living. 

A twig snapped in the distance. 

She jerked upright, her fingers digging into the rough bark. 

The coyote stepped out of the dust and sat under the branch she was perched on, looking up with hungry eyes. 

Ella tucked her legs up as high as they would go and hung on, hoping the coyote would lose interest and move on. 

She stared down at the coyote, afraid to move. 

Chittering in the dust. 

Ella tensed. 

The raccoon waddled towards the tree, its wide, fuzzy body ambling out of the haze. The coyote perked up, and a broad doggy grin broke out on its face. 

The raccoon stood up on its hind legs. The coyote matched it. The two animals faced each other, their paws touched, and they waltzed around the tree on their hind legs while holding each other with their front paws. 

Ella gaped. 

She blinked and cursed. 

They spun around the tree, the coyote and the raccoon, in a bizarre, twisted caricature of dance. 

“What the— Did I stumble into Narnia?” Ella demanded. 

The raccoon and the coyote ignored her as they danced on.

The scrub jay fluttered down and landed on the coyote's head. The bird chirped and tweeted and called as the trio spun around and around. 

“This is insane,” Ella muttered. She dug her fingers into the bark of the tree, trying to ground herself, and closed her eyes. “This isn’t happening. You did drugs or something. Your water was spiked. Someone threw drugs into the Los Angeles water system and you’re just on a really bad trip. There has to be an explanation.” She opened her eyes and, yep, the coyote and the raccoon were still waltzing around the tree through the dusty haze. It was awkward and strange with the coyote being long and lean coupled with the raccoon’s stocky build. 

“Is a magic lion going to show up? Did I fall into another reality? If a lion tells me I’m the Chosen One I’m going to lose it.” 

The coyote and raccoon spun on. 

“Seriously. No more drugs.”

* * *

Ella clung to the tree as the raccoon, coyote and bird waltzed their way into the dust. She wasn’t sure whether it was a disturbingly realistic dream or she’d fallen back into making poor decisions. 

Maybe she was so addled on drugs she was just imagining all of this while Chloe tried to bring her around. 

Or maybe Narnia really was a thing. If a talking animal showed up and offered her a crown, she was totally saying yes. 

She spent what felt like hours in the tree, on edge, waiting for the strange trio to reappear. 

The dust started settling. It was barely noticeable at first, but soon visibility improved, and a strange, dust-covered landscape unveiled itself. 

She maneuvered herself out of the tree, and didn’t so much climb out as tumble. There was a brief tug of war with a twig that had caught in her hair, but when Ella made it to the ground, she rubbed at her eyes, took her ponytail out, combed her fingers through her hair, dislodging as much dust as she could. She pulled her phone back out, still no cell service. “Forking shirtballs,” she muttered, failing miserably at being positive and upbeat. 

Now that she could see more than a few feet, it was obvious there was no way she was going to find her way back. She had no idea where she was and everything was covered in dust. 

The tree she’d sheltered in the night before was nestled in-between two rocky hills. The main Vasquez Rocks formation was nowhere to be seen and Ella was entirely unsure of which direction she should set out in. 

“I’m probably not even in the park anymore,” she muttered to herself. She tipped her head back. The dust had cleared away and the sky was back to being blue. No clouds in sight and not even the ever present plane contrails. She frowned. “I’ve probably wandered into some government containment zone and, surprise, I’m probably walking through a nuclear dumping site. I’m going to come out the other side with every kind of cancer imaginable. At least I won’t need a flashlight anymore. I’ll just walk around glowing. Probably get fired for crime scene contamination. Oh, look, radiation everywhere. The corpse is melting. Thanks, Ella!” 

She started walking away from her refuge. As far as she could tell, she was the only one around to disturb the dust. No animal tracks were visible. No insects, no birds, no tiny little paw prints from crazy raccoons. 

“Hey, Big Guy, can I wake up now?” Ella said. “This is just a little too weird, and I’m pretty sure it’s not real, and if I’m passed out on the side of the trail I’d really appreciate it if I could wake up to some hot guys fanning my face. Or maybe a hot lady. I don’t know, I’m not picky. I’ll even take Chloe’s worried face; You know the one, with the scrunched brows.” 

Something moved on the hill above her. She caught the movement out of her peripheral vision. Ella stopped and scanned the rocks. Red dust blended with shades of brown and grey; they were shot through with bluish grey from some of the plants that hadn’t managed to wither away just yet or weren’t entirely coated in dust. 

She would have missed her stalker entirely if its tail wasn’t twitching.

A cougar crouched on a rock twenty feet ahead of her, poised to strike, every muscle tense. Its eyes narrowed as it fixated on her. 

Ella froze, hyperaware of every detail. The swish of the cat's tail, the way the pads of its feet gripped the rock, the coiling of its muscles as it prepared to pounce. Her instincts screamed. The part of her brain that had been honed on distant savannas in eons past railed at her to flee. 

She ran. 

Her arms pumped, her legs moved, and her lungs screamed. She didn’t stop. Primal fear welled up deep within her. Adrenaline buzzed through her veins. 

An angry scream cut through the air behind her, and Ella poured on more speed. 

That cat was close behind her—she could hear it— and her heart sank. _This was it_. This was _IT_.

Something caught on her backpack, and Ella was flung to the ground. The air was knocked out of her as she hit, and she could feel the weight of the cat on her back. She scrambled on the rocky ground, trying to find a handhold. The cat growled and tugged at her backpack. One massive paw, claws unfurled, settled next to her face. 

Angry shrieking and squawking filling the air. The cat screamed and reared up. One strap was already loose, and she managed to shimmy free. 

Ella didn’t waste time now that the cougar was distracted. She crawled onto her hands and knees, risked a glance back and boggled at the sight of a little California scrub jay dive bombing a fully grown cougar. 

The cat looked as astounded as Ella felt. Its sleek body recoiled from the bird, ears pinned to its head, one enormous paw raised as if it wanted to bat the little jay out of the sky. 

The bird threw itself at the cat’s head, screaming for all its worth. The cat growled and swatted at it, but the bird was quick, eluding teeth and claw to pull at its fur with small feet and peck with a sharp beak. 

As much as she wanted to know why a bird would take on a cougar to save a human, she wasn’t going to ask questions. All she needed was out of here. And a stiff drink once she made it home. 

Too bad Lux had shut down and Lucifer wasn’t around. She wanted to drown herself in his alcohol collection. 

First things first: get out of this particular hell. 

She moved as fast as she could down the rocky ravine, trying not to sprain an ankle on the loose gravel. 

The cat and bird were soon out of sight and her only companion was a little spring that bubbled down the rocks with her, soaking her shoes. Every step she made caused her feet to slosh. She’d run through grass and scrub while lost. Foxtails worked their way into the seams of her tennis shoes, and burrs stuck in her socks. Pain shot through her right ankle, but she couldn’t stop to figure out what was causing it. 

Distance. She needed distance so she didn’t become lunch. The cat wasn’t going to be deterred by the bird for long. In fact, her little scrub jay friend was probably an appetizer by now.

Ella kept moving for what seemed like ages. The sides of the hill narrowed until sheer rock walls rose up around her. She prayed the narrow walls of the canyon wouldn’t end in a dead end. There had to be a way out. She couldn’t be _that_ far from civilization. 

A rocky outcropping provided some shade from the burning sun, and Ella decided that, apex predator or not, she needed to take a break. She needed water and to deal with whatever was happening to her feet right now. Especially her right ankle. She plopped down on the rocky ground and scooched herself as far into the shade as she could get. 

Her once bright blue shoes were a disaster of mud, water, foxtails, and burrs. Worst of all, she’d somehow managed to get a round cactus ball stuck to the back of her ankle. The little cactus ball, _cholla_ her brain supplied, was only about the size of a ping pong ball but its fuzzy spines were sharp and dug deep into her skin. She must have picked it up when she’d been flung to the ground by the cougar.

“Adrenaline, you amaze me,” Ella muttered to herself, trying to figure out the best way to get the ball of cholla off without getting it embedded further into her skin. 

“Worst day ever. And, oh, yay, I’m going to miss work, and I’ll die out here and some hiker will stumble across my body and _hooray_ forensics, because they’ll know I died of exposure.” 

She took her left shoe off, carefully removed as many burrs and grass seeds as she could, screwed up her face, and used the bottom of her shoe to whack at the cholla stuck to her ankle. She gasped when the shoe made contact, causing the barbs in her skin to shift. She whacked at it a second time, and, thankfully, the cactus came off. A few barbs were stuck in the rubber of her shoe, but she was able to pull them out one by one and very carefully remove the few remaining barbs in her ankle. 

That messy task accomplished, she maneuvered herself out of her shadowy overhang and made for the stream. She scooped water into her hands and splashed her face. Feeling somewhat better, she rocked back on her heels, wrapped her arms around her knees, and watched the water bubble down the hill. It seemed most of the dust had already washed out and thirst was starting to get the better of her. She could feel it in the way her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and in the parched feeling in the back of her throat. But she was a city girl and drinking water out of strange streams was not something city girls did. 

Her fingers twitched against her dirty pants; the sound of gurgling intensified. 

“Screw it,” she said, dipping her hands into the water. She slurped it up greedily, half convinced that at any moment she’d be struck down with awful stomach pains and that would be the end of Ella Lopez. Brought down by a weakness for water. 

She ended up back under her outcropping, plucking sticky things from her socks and shorts. The socks she wrung out in the water and laid out in the sun to dry. She’d be screwed if the mountain lion showed up, but considering how narrow the ravine was, there was little hope of escape if it appeared. 

Shadows moved with the sun, and, as her socks dried, Ella sat with her back against a rock and tried not to feel abandoned and alone. “Big Guy,” she whispered, playing with the ends of her hair, “I could really use some help right now. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. I’ve never even been camping. I stay at hotels and do day hikes with stops to take pictures for the 'gram and to show off at work.” She swallowed. “I could really use your help. I don’t want to die here.”

She paused, hoping for some divine miracle. Maybe a voice on the wind, the sound of helicopter blades overhead and Maze repelling out, even just enough service on her phone to get one text message out. 

Nothing. 

It wasn’t like the Big Guy had ever helped her in the past. Not in any kind of noticeable way. He was more—a source of hope. She liked the idea that someone was out there with some sort of plan and she wasn’t just some insect clinging to the face of the earth as it screamed through space. 

It was hard to feel like her life mattered in the Big Guy’s plan when she was stuck out in the desert, alone and afraid. This ravine had a higher probability of being her final resting place rather than the path to rescue. 

Shadows marched across the rocky ground, and the stream gurgled along. 

There was no use sitting here feeling sorry for herself. If she was gonna roll up to the pearly gates, she was gonna go out trying to live, rather than giving up to die. 

Ella put on her semi-dry socks and shoved her aching feet into her shoes. She hobbled her way further into the canyon. Every instinct was telling her that if she tried to turn back, she’d just end up an Ella-shaped hors d'oeuvre for a large, angry cat. 

So she kept going. 

The ground sloped down, and the walls of the ravine closed in. She ran one hand against the hard rock of the wall as she walked, dry ground was hard to find as the stream flowed around her. 

Chirping cut through the air, and a blue blur shot over her head. 

The scrub jay was back. 

The bird circled above her, chirping and squawking and acting generally proud of himself.

Ella beamed up at the bird. He wasn’t safety or even a way out, but he’d saved her from the cougar. And that was good enough for her. “Hey, buddy! Good job with the mountain lion. You totally had him!” 

The bird chirped and landed on a rock a little above her head. She looked up at the bird, and the bird looked back at her. She tentatively raised a hand at the scrub jay and was shocked when he hopped off the rock and onto her hand. 

He was close in size to a crow, maybe a little smaller, but he was big enough that she wasn’t getting Disney Princess vibes and did not feel the need to burst into song. He sported a greyish-white underside, deep blue feathers along his head and back with a splotch of dark grey across his shoulders.

“I’m not sure if you’re going to stick around,” Ella told her new friend, “but I hope you don’t mind if I call you Percy.” The jay sat back on his haunches, fluffed out his belly feathers and proceeded to preen them, as unconcerned as it was possible to be. “You definitely look like a Percival Fluffyfeathers Lopez, Percy for short. I’ve adopted you. You’re mine now. It’s what happens when you save a girl from being a cougar snack. You get adopted.”

The newly named Percival Fluffyfeathers Lopez gave one last preen, rustled his feathers back into place, and hopped off her hand onto her shoulder. 

She started walking, somewhat nervous about her new shoulder accessory. Her gait was a bit stiff as she got used to him being there. Percy, for his part, was much more comfortable than she was, rolling along with her like her shoulder was a place he was familiar with. He would occasionally straighten a feather and then start preening her hair, his beak running through the strands. She was sure her hair was a disaster; between all the dust, running, sweating, sunburn, and now attention from the bird, she probably looked like she’d been pulled through a bush backwards. 

Which wasn’t that far off the truth. 

Ella glanced over the shoulder the bird wasn’t occupying. The ravine was mostly in shadow by this point, and the way she had come looked ominous and foreboding. She paused and glanced out of the corner of her eye at her new friend. “Do you think we should retrace our steps? I mean, we did come from that direction.” 

Percy pecked her shoulder. 

Ella flinched. “Ow. Fine! No going back. I get it. Jeez.” 

He settled comfortably on her shoulder and rubbed his feathered head against her cheek. She beamed at him, a big puddle of goo over the avian affection. 

The day wore on and she continued down the ravine. Some sections were so narrow, more of narrow canyon than anything else, that Ella had to turn herself sideways to get through the rocky walls. 

Percy would launch himself from her shoulder and watch from the overhang as she navigated the cramped sections. Her feet were constantly cold and wet as there was no escaping the little stream. Once she was done giving herself future nightmares about being stuck and unable to escape, the little jay would return to her shoulder. 

She was starting to think that she had died and gone to hell and that for some reason her hell was slot canyons and being chased by wild animals.

She was either dead, had stumbled into a warped version of Narnia or fairy land or whatever, or was seriously tripping. 

It was hard to tell time in the canyon, but the sun wasn’t directly overhead anymore, and the shadows stretched, long and dark. The rim of the canyon was awash in gold whenever Ella looked up. Her resignation at spending the night cold and scared was starting to set in when Percy stiffened on her shoulder. He stood up and stamped little feet on her hoodie, and the call he made was shrill next to her ear. 

“Ow, what? Percy, man, there’s no need to scream.”

Percy called again and fluttered off her shoulder towards a deep shadow on the other side of the stream. 

Ella splashed after him. “Fine, I’m coming. It’s not like I have anywhere to be. Oh, right, I do have somewhere to be. My apartment, watching garbage TV and eating garbage food and drinking garbage alcohol. But nooooooo, it was a nice day for a walk, and now I’m in a heretofore unknown canyon. Just what the frack...” Ella trailed off. 

Another even smaller canyon branched off from the one she was in. With the way the entrance was positioned, it was easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. Which apparently Percy did. 

Percy landed in front of her and hopped ahead on the dry, sandy ground of the new canyon. Ella trailed after the bird, resigning herself to her guide being a scrub jay. The sounds of the burbling stream receded into the distance as the small canyon twisted and turned. When she looked up, the golden light on the rim of the canyon was fading away, and red streaks were starting to shoot through the sky from the approaching sunset. 

She rounded a bend, and Percy trilled, his chest puffed out in triumph, as the canyon abruptly ended. 

Massive walls of stone reached into the horizon to each side of her and looked as if they had no end. They were standing atop a rubble-strewn hill. There was nothing living that she could see: no plants, no insects, no reptiles. Just Ella and the little scrub jay. 

Ominous clouds loomed in front of her, lit in such a way that they looked like they were burning from below. 

A faint trail snaked away from the canyon entrance down the hill to a massive, spiraling iron gate. It looked out of place and foreboding in the desert landscape. Rusted beams twisted towards the sky, and words were bent into the metal itself. 

Ella squinted; she could barely make out the words from where she was standing with the light so dim, but if she focused... 

She blinked. “What the hell?” She read the words out loud. “ _Abandon all hope ye who enter here_.” 

Percy bounced at her feet, chipper and happy. 

“No. Seriously. What the hell?” 

She was rooted to the spot, could barely swallow, and her heart was in her throat. Her hands started to shake. “I’ve read this book,” she said. “I’ve read this book, and I didn’t like it.” Her knees wobbled and she ended up on her rear, clutching her arms. 

“This has to be some sort of crazy drug trip. I can’t be… I took a hit of acid; someone spiked my water bottle.” She blinked and rubbed at her eyes. Her fingers came away wet with tears. “I can’t… This is stupid. If I’m dead… Why am I in Hell?” She staggered upright and screamed wordlessly up at the sky. 

Percy squawked, fluttering further down the rocky hill. 

“I believed in You!” Ella howled. “And.. and… now I’m in Hell. For what? WHAT DID I DO WRONG? Did I not believe enough? Was my faith not good enough for You?” 

The only sound in the still landscape was her ragged breathing.

Hands on her knees, chest heaving as she tried to suck air into her lungs, she looked over at the impossible gate. 

There were no walls on either side of the gate. And for the sheer scale of the cliffs and the hill, it was the gate that grabbed her attention. It almost pulsed. The closer she looked at it, the more terror and dread she felt. 

“I’m dead,” Ella mumbled, once she’d caught her breath. She eased herself onto the ground, ignoring the small rocks that poked into her back, and stared up at the roiling clouds above. She rested one hand on her belly, feeling the rise and fall of her lungs. A body that was still breathing. “Okay. Weird. Maybe I’m not dead. I’m breathing.” 

Percy fluttered next to her head and took a strand of hair in his beak, arranging her hair just so. 

What a joke, needing to breathe when she was dead, still feeling the aches and pains from her long trek. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Is this what happened when someone died? They just mosied their way into the afterlife thinking their body was still working? With a bird for company?

Ella rolled onto her side, flinching as the sharp point of a rock poked into the meat of her upper arm. Percy hopped back, flicking his wings and warbling out a question. 

“Are you the angel of death?” Ella whispered. Her eyes widened. “Are angels…birds? I mean, it would make sense. The wings and all. Does everyone get a bird-angel to show them the way after death? Is that how this works? Do you vanish or something after I step through the gate?

Percy, the bird-angel-scrub-jay-who-might-be-the-angel-of-death, fluffed up his belly feathers, sat back on his haunches and pulled each one through his beak, preening and arranging them back into place. 

Ella garbled out a laugh. 

“I’m dead. I’m down here in freaking Hell and my body is back in the park. Was it heat exhaustion? Did the mountain lion kill me? Is my body…gnawed on? Oh, man, that would be such a cool forensics scene. I hope the team that picks up my remains does a good job. Death by mountain lion. Chloe is gonna be pissed. And upset, and then pissed. Do you think they’d hurt the cat? That would really suck. He was only doing what mountain lions do. Is it normal to not remember dying? Or only if it’s traumatic? Oh, dang, was it so bad my soul is just like, 'Nope, not gonna remember this one. Too gory? ‘Cause my gore tolerance is _high_.” 

Percy cocked his head. He fluttered down the hill. Flitting from rock to rock, closer and closer to the gate. 

When she thought about the afterlife…her afterlife, specifically, it was amorphous. She just kinda assumed that she’d die someday and that she’d be with her family again. The ones that had passed that she missed so so so much. She’d never met her Abuelito, but she’d assumed he’d be there to welcome her into Heaven. 

Going to Hell was a joke. Something she laughed about when she dwelled a little too long on her wild, misspent youth. Or when Lucifer worked at the precinct. Yeah, she and the Big Guy had their share of ups and downs. She’d had a crisis of faith after Charlotte’s murder, but she’d found her way back. 

She believed. Down to her bones. Even when she’d been struggling and claiming she didn’t, she still did. She just didn’t know how to reconcile her faith with the bad things that happened and how the Big Guy could let them. 

And now, here she was. Laid out in the dirt and dust of purgatory with the gates of Hell before her. And her dumbass angel-bird-friend was hopping his way closer to the gate. He hopped, looked over his shoulder, chirped, and then did it all again. Like he wanted her to follow. 

This sucked. She didn’t deserve this. She hadn’t been that bad of a person in life. Why her? Why Hell? 

She sniffed, and wiped a tear off her cheek, smearing dust across her face in the process. 

Percy landed on a rock in front of the gate and launched into a chattering song. He chirped, and cawed, and made a nuisance of himself. 

Ella considered herself the kind of person who picked herself back up and kept going, no matter what, even if it was hard. There was a big part of her that wanted to lay on the ground forever. But she wasn’t built that way. She’d never been content to give up. 

She rolled over, pushed herself up and hobbled down the rocky hill. 

Percy chirped and launched himself through the gate. 

Ella followed him into Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm anxious and self-soothing with fic. Hope y'all are taking care of yourselves and staying away from others. Lets all be hermits together (but apart)!


	3. They go by turns each one unto the judgment

Tick Tock Tick Tock. 

Lucifer shifted on the hard couch and drummed his fingers against his sternum as he watched the second hand on the clock tick and tock. 

“How does one go about delivering punishment when they no longer see themselves as a punisher? I enjoyed it for so long. Punishment. Giving sinners their just desserts. But I find it rings hollow now.” He sighed and shifted again, pressing his shoulder blades against the hard couch cushion and trying to find a more comfortable position. He desperately missed his Italian leather couches. So many delicious positions could be achieved there. “What do you think, Doctor?” 

Doctor Kaalund, a handsome man with brown hair and pale skin, furrowed his brow and glanced down at the pad of paper on his knees. “Who are you?” he asked. 

“We’ve been over this, Doctor! I’m Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil, Satan, Old Scratch. I’m sure you’re familiar with one of my names. And I’m desperately in need of a new therapist. It’s been bloody awful trying to find someone to replace Linda.”

Doctor Kaalund’s eyebrow raised. “You think you’re the Devil?” 

Lucifer huffed. “I am the Devil. I just told you. Now back to my punishment problem.”

The Doctor tapped his pen against the paper. “The problem where you don’t want to punish and torture people?”

“Exactly, I’ve rather lost the taste for it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve a deft hand with torture, but I just don’t want to anymore.” 

The Doctor cocked his head. “Is someone forcing you to”—he paused and audibly swallowed—“torture?”

“Well, it is Dear Old Dad’s fault. Abandoned and cast down. Plummeting through dimensions, bound, and burning upon impact. I do _not_ recommend. And then, after I’d pulled myself together as much as I was able and enforced some semblance of control over the place, the human souls started trickling in, and they all craved punishment. I admit, I enjoyed it at first. All those desires. All that pain. The _begging_. Now though, I just don’t have the taste for it, Doctor.”

“And you want me to help you regain your taste for delivering punishment?”

“The demons are beginning to notice. And normally, I don’t give a single toss about what they think. I am their king, but I’d rather not have to deal with their prying right now. They’re terrible subjects, demons. Handy with the rack and absolute connoisseurs of eyeball popping, but I am not in the mood to be mother-henned by demons.”

A big black rotary phone sitting on a stack of papers rang. Doctor Kaalund’s eyes drifted over to it. 

“Focus, Doctor. This is my time.”

Doctor Kaalund cleared his throat. “Ah, yes, pardon. Now where were we?”

“Dealing with my distressing inability to torture the damned.”

“Ah.”

Lucifer pushed himself off the couch and stalked around the room. The wooden walls were a garish shade of orange, and the few items displayed on the shelves were a terrible shade of puce. He scowled at the dusty books. 

“I am a reluctant king, Doctor. I cannot be dethroned. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work, even cut off my bloody wings, and the damn things came back. I’m at a bit of a loss. How do I rule effectively if I don’t want to? I cannot abdicate. The demons must be contained, but they don’t seem to want to be left to their own devices. It’s Hell, Doctor. We perfected automation before Earth ever caught on. I don’t know why they need direction.”

“How long have you had these delusions?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “This again. Doctor? I _am_ the Devil. I am not delusional. I am simply grappling with the problem of reluctant rule.” 

Doctor Kaalund scribbled on his notepad. 

Lucifer frowned. Something was off. 

The phone rang again. This time, the Doctor answered it. 

Lucifer tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, searching for the tiny little ripple in the firmament that felt so strange and inconsistent. 

Doctor Kaalund gasped. The phone handset clattered to the desk.

Lucifer lost the trail. 

The Doctor bent his dark head into his hands and sobbed. 

“Come now, Doctor. Pull yourself together, man. I’ve got problems in need of answers.” 

The man gulped for air. He staggered out of his seat, the notebook forgotten where it had fallen on the floor. He dug through his desk drawer, pulled out a gun, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. 

Lucifer sighed. 

The loop reset. 

Doctor Kaalund furrowed his brow and glanced down at the pad of paper on his knees. “Who are you?” he asked.

Lucifer pushed a dusty award over and grimaced. “No one, Doctor. I was just leaving.” 

He stepped out of the doctor’s office and into Hell itself. Rock walls towered above him as sand blew down the empty corridor, the red sky roiled above. Doors rattled in their frames, one after another, as far as he could see. 

Lucifer shrugged, adjusted his tunic and wished for cufflinks. It was to no avail; his suit was long gone, and his Louboutins didn’t even bear thinking about. 

He didn’t venture out to the furthest circles of Hell often. When he wanted a door and its occupant, they came to him. Rarely, did he go to them. But eyes were everywhere, especially in the Ninth Circle, and he wasn’t about to let the demonic population of Hell know that its king was in search of a therapist. 

It was a search that was proving to be decidedly unfruitful. He’d started with some of the more well known names in the field, but trying to get Sigmund Freud to focus as he did unspeakable things to his mother wasn’t worth the effort. 

They were all so invested in their own punishment. Whenever he tried to open up and seek their opinion, that’s when the session would go off the rails. This one had gone better than most. Doctor Kaalund was fairly straightforward in his guilt and rather uncomplicated. The last chap had spent the whole session screaming as his teeth had tangoed across his desk. 

It had been mildly diverting. The molars were splendid dancers. 

He sighed and leaned against the rock, not looking forward to heading back to the palace. Hell tugged at him. His constant awareness of the realm buzzing at the back of his head. That tiny little ripple he’d felt in the hell loop was still there, but faint enough that he wasn’t sure of the source or even where to begin looking. 

Not that he even wanted to. He was tired. Years and years of ruling Hell, of not being near those he held dear, was wearing on him. 

All he wanted to do was sleep. Maybe lose himself in music, or sex. But this was Hell and such things were out of his reach. 

Lucifer rolled his shoulders, and in a flutter of feathers vanished from the Second Circle.

* * *

Nothing happened when Ella followed Percy through the gate. 

Flames didn’t engulf her. Demons carrying pitchforks didn’t pop up out of the ground. Skeletons didn’t dance by. There was no red, laughing devil ready to demonstrate how the rack worked. 

Dust swirled at her feet, carried aloft by a hot breeze. It was disappointing. All the TV shows and movies went on and on about fire and brimstone and the tortures of Hell, and the landscape was so empty that a tumbleweed would be exciting. 

Ella glanced back at the twisted gate, grimaced, and started walking. She didn’t have any other explanation for where she was. Some billionaires' idea of a private joke? But that didn’t jibe. She’d woken up under the overhang with Chloe nowhere to be seen. And this certainly wasn’t Heaven. 

Figures she’d end up in the bad place. That wild youth was back to bite her on her dead ass. 

She kicked a stone as Percy gave up hopping in favor of riding on her shoulder. He traveled along in comfort, continuing his efforts to preen her hair into an actual bird's nest. 

She didn’t know how long she walked, but it felt like ages. Her phone was a heavy weight in her pocket, but the battery had fizzled out hours ago. She’d shuffled off her mortal coil, was in Hell, but still had her cell phone. Did her phone exist or did she only think it existed? It wasn’t like there was anyone she could ask. Maybe she could track down a demon or even the Big Man himself, and ask a few questions about the afterlife in-between torture sessions. 

Shrouded figures loomed in the distance. Ella sped up, eager to see another living thing, or dead thing, or even demon thing, considering her current state of being, and also which section of the afterlife she’d ended up in.

The shadows resolved themselves into twisted rock formations, blown into strange shapes by wind, sand, and time. She stood underneath one and ran her hands along the windblown rock, not sure if she was disappointed or relieved. If she was in for torture and eternal damnation, she was ready to rip off the bandaid and find out how bad it was going to be. Not that there would be any getting it over with. Eternal torture. That freaking sucked.

The wind picked up, and Ella ducked her head and covered her eyes as fine sand grains whipped by. She pulled her hoodie over her head and tried to hunch down into it as she kept moving. The rock formations grew larger and more twisted; it was beginning to feel as if she was back in the canyon. The dim, looming shapes gave the impression that medieval gargoyles were perched above, looking down at her and wondering which parts were the tastiest. 

“Joke’s on you,” she grumbled up at the twisted rocks. “A mountain lion found out first.”

Whenever she looked back, Percy screamed at her. His comforting weight disappeared as he launched himself off her shoulder so he could flap overhead, berating her with all his might. It wasn’t worth it to have her hair pulled by an angry scrub jay. He’d even managed to grab her lip and tug at one point. So she kept her eyes ahead and robotically put one foot in front of the other. 

The path started ascending. Ella clamored up a rocky hill and left the twisted formations. Percy gripped her hoodie tighter and inched closer so his feathered body was pressed against her ear. He clucked deep in his throat, as if he were urging her on. She scrambled up the crest of a small hill and gasped. Her knees wobbled as her legs gave out. She thumped down on the ground and tried to swallow. 

She’d convinced herself she was ready to face her fate, and yet, looking down at what awaited her in the middle of a windswept valley, she wasn’t ready. 

It was a creature that looked like the unholy coupling of a goat and a worm. It was easily the size of a city bus, with a head like a goat. Four massive, black horns twisted out from the top of its head, two horns curved back behind its ears, while the other two spiraled towards the ground, leaving long gouges in the dirt every time it moved. There was a massive ring through its nose, and saliva dripped from its mouth, foaming and steaming on the ground beneath its crooked yellow teeth. It had arms like a person, and she got the impression that it could wrap its fist around her body and crush her like a bug. It’s body was a pulsating, leathery mass that ended in a coiled tail that lashed to and fro. 

Movement about thirty feet away from the creature’s head resolved itself into a cluster of people. Her fellow doomed souls from the look of them. Two twisted vaguely human-ish creatures carrying spears patrolled the edge of the terrified group. 

Ella looked up at the roiling sky. “Nope. No way. I’m not ready. I thought I was ready, but I’m really not. I’m young. Yeah, I did some dumb stuff, but I don’t think it should be held against me. And Hell. Why Hell? I want to go home.” She blinked away tears. She wanted to hug her abuelita and stuff herself full of tamales. She wanted Chloe to roll her eyes as she cracked stupid, inappropriate jokes at crime scenes. 

“Can I just turn around?” she whispered to Percy, who was a fluffed up ball on her shoulder. 

His sharp beak rapped against her cheek. 

“Ow, dude. Fine. No turning around. We’ll... Um. Go face our fate, sorry, _my_ fate, or whatever. Eternal damnation.” She gulped. “Yay.” 

Percy chirped into her ear. It almost sounded consoling. 

Ella pushed herself up and inched her way down the steep path. The red clouds roiled overhead and a familiar smell wafted on the breeze. It was one she immediately recognized from the many various crime scenes she’d been on: decay, putrefaction, rot.

She pulled her t-shirt over her face and focused on breathing through her mouth. Whatever was rotting, and she bet it was the goat-worm creature, was worse than any crime scene she’d ever encountered. 

Rocks shifted under her shoes as she navigated towards the valley floor. She slipped, her arms cartwheeled and instead of going face first down the rocky path, she counterbalanced and slid partway down on her ass. 

Percy fluttered off her shoulder and circled above her. His anxious cries loud now that they were below the rim of the bowl and the howling wind had died down. 

“Okay. I’m good. I got this, sliding my way ass first into hell. Nice to know the Ella brand is on point.” She gingerly picked herself back up and kept going. Was it possible to twist an ankle when you were dead? If this was Hell, it was possible she could severely injure her dead self on her way to being severly injured by demons. 

The closer she got to the bottom, to the massive, corpulent creature sprawled in the center, the more real and terrifying it became. The sight of it made her brain fritz out, and the urge to hide and jibber senselessly was simmering under the surface, but the forensic scientist in her was fascinated. The part of her brain that was used to looking at corpses and cataloging crime scenes was abuzz. She wanted to know how it worked, why it looked like that. Could it move? Did it need to eat? Did it eat doomed souls? 

Percy cawed above her head. One of the creatures holding a spear snapped its head around to look at her. 

She gaped back at it. 

It had to be a demon. An excessively hairy demon that reminded her of Bigfoot. She couldn’t see its eyes, and it was draped in leather hides that were doing a terrible job of hiding its bits. Its hairy, hairy bits. 

Ella averted her eyes and turned around. Nope. She wasn’t doing this. She’d live out in the desert and be a hell hermit. Percy could bitch all he wanted, but it wasn’t happening. She didn’t agree to this eternal damnation and torture thing, so as far as she was concerned she was noping out. 

The bigfoot demon snorted behind her. 

Ella ran, but her feet slid on the rough gravel and she couldn’t seem to claw her way back up the path. Her feet couldn’t find traction and pebbles and rocks came loose every time she tried to grab onto a hand hold. 

Something clamped onto her hoodie and tugged hard. Percy screamed overhead.

Ella yelped as the bigfoot demon threw her to the ground. It stood over her, the point of its spear pressing lightly against her sternum. It’s mouth gaped open and a long string of saliva dripped from rotten yellow teeth. It had no eyes that she could see. 

“Hey dude,” Ella said. “I was just, um, passing by.” 

The demon grumbled. She glanced over at its feet as Its long hairy toes flexed next to her head. It was wearing boots that had split at the seams and its long, yellow toenails dug into the rocks and dirt next to her head. She watched a broken toenail split even further and black blood well up at the cuticle. 

It snarled and she glanced back up, trying to ignore all the various anatomical bits that were _swinging_.

The spear pressed harder. Ella yelped. “I’ll just hop to the back of the line," she said, hoping outright bravado would carry her through the interaction rather than bursting into tears. Which is what she really wanted to do. 

Percy alighted on the ground next to the Demon’s toes and pecked at one. 

“You came from the beast road,” the demon ground out through cracked lips. 

“Oh, did I? I’m not really sure. I did so much walking and now I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be.” The tip of the spear dug into her skin harder. “I totes didn’t pin Hell as the place I’d end up, but here I am.” The demon stared at her, or at least she thought he did.

“You came from the beast road,” it said again. 

Ella grimaced and tried not to give into the fear screaming through her veins. “I guess? The trail was pretty shoddy, but my little buddy down here was a good guide.” She raised her eyebrows and shot her eyes in the direction of Percy, who was eyeing the gnarly demon toes spilling out of the boots and looking as disgusted as a bird could manage. 

“No one comes from the beast road.”

A rock dug into Ella’s spine. She shifted and gasped as the spear dug back into her skin. 

The demon bared its teeth and snapped the spear upright. Ella scrambled to get away from it. She staggered upright and managed a half hearted wave.

“You will go with the rest,” the demon said.

“Oh, those guys?” Ella hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the frightened clump of human souls. “No prob here. I’ll just get going and hang out with my fellow doomed souls. You know, things to do, tortures to endure.” She shrugged in a ‘what can you do’ kind of way. 

Ella hurried towards the gaggle of humans and tried not to react to the demon’s exasperated huff.

She stopped behind the last human, a woman of about thirty, and smiled brightly. The woman turned, and Ella’s smile faltered. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, and one side of her face was caved in. 

“Woah,” Ella said, unable to help herself. “That’s a pretty gnarly head wound. Car accident? Oh wait, no, the impact is too localized. Looks like a hammer. That must be a humdinger of a headache you have going on.” She laughed, or at least what came out was an awkward giggle. 

“Where am I?” the woman asked.

“Um. Hell. Pretty sure. At least mostly positive. Or else Dangly Bigfoot over there is a type of angel I never learned about in Church.” 

A dark-skinned man scowled at them. His shirt was red with blood, and gunshot wounds gaped open. “Look, we’ve told her. This bitch doesn’t believe a word we say. You’re in Hell, Karen.” 

“My name is Erin,” the woman muttered back. 

The man rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t matter, you got nailed. Just like the rest of us. So what’s your deal?” he asked Ella. “How’d you kick it?” 

“Looking for Nacho.”

The man squinted at her, and even Karen/Erin tilted her bashed in head. 

“Okay, not really. Well. Yes. But not like you think. At first I thought a cougar ate me, but now looking at you guys, I’m not so sure that’s the case. Heat exhaustion, maybe? A stress-induced heart attack because I lost a friend’s dog who happens to be named Nacho? I totally wasn’t banking on Hell, though. I thought me and the Big Guy were tight.” 

The man snorted. “I fucked up too much in my life to be let through the Pearly Gates. Just never thought Hell was, you know, this literal.” His eyes slid over to Dangly Bigfoot and another demon. The two were arguing in a harsh, guttural language, their spears waving in the air as they gestured back at the huddled mass of humans. 

Ella leaned in and whispered, “Do you know what’s going on? Why are we waiting here? 'Cause I’m totally freaking out right now.” 

“My boyfriend is supposed to pick me up,” Karen/Erin said. “He’s going to be mad when I’m late.” Her fingers twiddled with her long blonde ponytail. “I probably shouldn’t have slept with his best friend. He might find out.”

“Bitch, I’m pretty sure he already knows, going by your face.” The man closed his eyes and pursued his lips. “I’m Dwayne. You’ve met Karen.” He waved his hand at the rest of the huddled group. “You’ll probably get to know the rest of us pretty well. All we’ve been doing is waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” 

Dwayne lowered his voice and glanced back at the demons. “Waiting for that weird-ass creature over there to wake up.” 

Ella bit her lip and gulped. 

The creature in question snorted out a hot breath and ground something between its teeth in its sleep, its corpulent, slug-like body glistening under the red sky.

* * *

Ella was good at jokes. She had plenty about waiting in line. She liked to pull them out when one of the officers was getting snippy because forensics took time. Even though she and her team were good at what they did, they were still understaffed and could only go as fast as technology would let them. 

She’d learned to soothe fragile egos with a quick smile, a laugh, and some sort of joke about waiting their turn. She didn’t think that waiting in line would be an actual torment in Hell. 

Well, she should have known. Hell was probably responsible for paperwork too. 

Oh, man, maybe she was just in the waiting room of Hell, and the next step was filling out the Hell version of intake forms. Was the giant slug creature just the Hell office assistant? Or wait, was he Satan? She peered at the strange creature. He had the whole goat thing going for him, so maybe. She’d read _Dante’s Inferno_ ages ago, and she couldn’t remember all that much about it, but Satan was a weird giant creature. So maybe? 

Lucifer would be pissed if the guy he was emulating was a goat slug creature. 

She hoped he never found out. He’d be crushed. 

Their little group didn’t grow in size. They numbered around twenty and from what Ella could tell, they came from all over the world. A whole range of ages, nationalities, and experiences. There was a sweet looking Japanese grandma who clutched her walker, a nervous looking man in African dress with a slit throat, an older Chinese man who kept to himself and grumbled under his breath when anyone got close. 

There was one man who looked strangely familiar. She kept shooting glances at him, trying to place where she’d seen his face. Because she knew him; she’d seen him before. 

Ella frowned and squinted past Dwayne. The man was tugging at his suit, adjusting his tie and running a nervous hand through his silver hair. He was late- to mid-sixties and relatively fit, although she could see padding around his stomach, and he had a bland, forgettable face. 

She knew him from somewhere. His blue eyes met hers, and it clicked in her brain. 

“I know you,” Ella blurted out. “You were one of the deciding votes on a health care bill that screwed a bunch of people over.” She frowned. “You’re a dick, man.” 

Congressman Brent Hunt, with the bland face and the mediocre political career, sidled away from her until he was on the opposite end of the group. Only twenty people waited for judgement, and he couldn’t even face her when dead. 

It wasn’t like she should even know him. He was the US representative from freaking Arizona. He hadn’t even been the deciding vote on that package, but he had an outsized social media presence and his weaponized use of the Bible set her teeth on edge. 

She should be thrilled he was going to rot in Hell. Except it looked like she was going to rot with him. 

Freaking awesome.

She’d been so good too. Well, except that interlude, post-Charlotte’s death, when she’d hit the partying and drugs a little hard as she searched for reason. 

Oh, and the gambling, and the car theft. 

She cringed. She wasn’t as squeaky clean as she liked to think. 

Dwayne and Karen/Erin were still arguing behind her; they’d been going at it for some time and didn’t look to be stopping anytime soon. 

Ella dug the toe of her shoe into the hard ground and tried to ignore the feelings of creeping dread. She missed her abuelita. One of her brothers was going to have to step up now. Abuelita didn’t like going to her doctor’s appointments alone so someone would need to go with her. And since Ella was dead, well, maybe Jay would pull his head out of his ass for once and go see Abuelita more. Since she wouldn’t be able to. Not anymore. 

Percy chirped and pulled at a shoelace. 

“Sorry, dude, I’m not trying to ignore you,” she told the irritated scrub jay. 

“So what’s with the bird?” Dwayne asked. 

“He decided to come with me, I guess. Or her. Do you know how to tell boy jays from girl jays?”

Dwayne shrugged. 

“I think he’s a spirit guide or something,” Ella said. She’d been half convinced at the gates that maybe he was the Angel of Death, but that was crazy. What would the Angel of Death want with her anyway?

“Okay,” Dwayne drawled. “Whatchu do in life that you need a personal escort to the afterlife?” 

Ella shrugged. “I stole cars? Counted cards? Maybe it was jumping onto pool toys in slo-mo for a fetish site? Or maybe I made one too many jokes at murder scenes. Oh, I did drugs a few times. There was one time I had to defuse a bomb after doing molly and a line of cocaine.” 

Dwayne blinked. “Okay, you’re weird, I’ll give you that, but why’d you get a hell-bird for a friend?” Blood gushed from Dwayne’s bullet wounds as he gestured at Percy. 

“He saved me from a cougar?” Ella replied, not entirely sure why Percy was so determined to stick with her. 

“Before you died?” 

She managed a weak smile. “I’m starting to think it was after.” 

“What kinda weird shit did your dead ass wander into?”

Ella opened her mouth to respond, but the two demons hustled past. Dangly Bigfoot was doing his best to keep up with his compatriot, a demon who looked vaguely human, but with the worst case of eczema she’d ever seen. They were rushing towards the creature. 

Its enormous horns dug furrows into the ground as its head moved. Huge, dark eyes blinked open, and muscular lips pulled back as the mouth gaped open in a yawn. 

The demons bowed before it, talking over each other as massive eyes with horizontal pupils focused on the huddled group of souls. Karen/Erin clung to Dwayne’s arm, hiding the side of her face that wasn’t pulverized in his shoulder. The scumbag politician was shaking, and Ella could hear his mumbled prayers, not that it would do him any good now. 

Percy sat back on his haunches and fluffed out his belly feathers so he could preen them. Like nothing of note was happening. 

The two demons bowed low before the goat creature and turned back towards the huddled humans. 

The eczema demon smiled, revealing a mouth lined with teeth filed to points. He gestured with his spear, and Dangly Bigfoot lept into action. His spear flew, knocking one of the humans away from the group. 

Brent Hunt, now-deceased mediocre US congressman and source of Ella’s political ire, tried to pull away from Dangly’s grasp. The laughing congressman from her recollection was absent; in that figure's place was a terrified man who knew that his comeuppance had finally arrived. 

Dangly dragged the venerable congressman across the rocky ground and threw him beneath the goat-creature's head. A stone ring Ella hadn’t noticed before lit up as soon as his feet touched it. Etchings were inscribed around the perimeter, not that Ella could tell what they meant. The congressman clasped his hands together, sobbed, and begged for mercy. 

The goat creature snorted and narrowed its eyes, a line of saliva dangling from its mouth. 

“Brent Matthew Hunt. Speak. For your judgement is here,” it said in a voice that sounded like giant boulders being ground together. 

What poured out of Brent was everything: every single sin he’d ever committed, every impure thought; every measure of guilt his soul contained was put on display. 

Ella had never thought very highly of him. In fact, she was only aware of his existence because of how that one medicare vote had affected her abuelita so personally. He’d never been one of the firebrands of his party, he voted in line, and said all the right things. But what poured out of Brent Hunt now was something else entirely. It was filth on a level that she’d never imagined. The things he’d done, the acts he’d committed, the blind eye he’d turned to human suffering was staggering. 

“And you’re the one who needed a personal escort to Hell?” Dwayne whispered into her ear. 

Ella grimaced. Percy hopped onto her tennis shoe and started untying her laces. 

In the circle, the confession was winding down. The congressman fell silent and slumped in on himself, swaying where he stood. He looked haggard, and tears streamed down his pale face as the weight of his sins bore down on him. 

“You have been judged,” the creature said. “An eternity of torments of your own making awaits you. You will find no mercy here.” 

A hot wind rose up, dust devils swirled around the creature’s pulsating body, and the congressman was blown off his feet. He screamed, fingers clawing at the ground. The wind howled like a living thing and tore at him, flipping him end over end as he was sucked into the air and then dragging past the creature and into the rocky canyon behind it. The wind roared and his screams were lost within it. 

The wind cut off. Silence descended. 

Dangly’s huff was loud in the hot, still air. He shook his enormous shaggy head, spit on the ground, and came for Karen/Erin next.

She screamed and begged. She clung to Dwayne until the demon clubbed her fingers with the butt of his spear. He dragged her away and threw her into the stone circle. The process repeated itself. 

Again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Then there were only three left: Ella, Dwayne, and the tiny Japanese grandmother. 

Dangly trotted back towards the group and came for Ella. She yelped and tried to extricate herself from his grasp. Dwayne reached for her, not that it would do any good. Her skin felt like she’d plunged her arm into stinging nettles where the demon held onto her. 

Percy fluttered onto the top of her head as Dangly shoved her into the stone circle. 

Unlike the people that had gone before her, the circle didn’t light up under her feet. It was an odd thing to notice when a goat creature with a head the size of a bus was staring down at her with its creepy orange eyes while foul breath wafted over her in waves. 

Ella’s mouth was moving before she could think about what she was saying. “Um, dude. I think your circle thingy is broken.” 

Dangly snarled. His eczema-ridden counterpart poked the perimeter of the circle with its spear. 

The creature laughed and Ella tried not to gag from the stench. Percy stomped one small foot on the top of her head and launched into a series of warbles and clucks that sounded like one of her abuelita’s tirades. 

“It’s been an age since one like you stood before me,” the creature said. An enormous hand, tipped with sharp claws, lifted into the air. It waved Dangly and his counterpart back, away from the stone circle.

“Ohhhhkay. Thanks?” Ella said dumbly.

“Tell me your name, human.” 

“You don’t know? I mean, you knew everyone else’s name. Why don’t you know mine? Or is it because”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“I’m not like other girls?”

The creature licked its lips with a slimy red tongue and didn’t answer. 

“Are you the Devil?” Ella blurted out. 

The demons behind her audibly gasped. 

Giant lips pulled back from enormous yellow teeth, and the great goat-headed creature rumbled. It’s purid sides contracted as it croaked. Ella blinked. It was laughing? 

“I would never presume to impugn upon my lord or take his place,” the creature said. “He is mightier than I.” He blinked and Ella was strongly reminded of Falkor from _The Neverending Story_. Except this was clearly the twisted, demonic version. “I am Mineos, one of The First. And I am the sorter of souls. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” 

“Ella Lopez, um, forensic scientist for the LAPD. Or at least I was. I’m pretty sure I was munched on by a mountain lion, or expired from dog-related stress.”

By all rights, she should be a crying mess like the people who’d stood here before her, but in the face of stress and terror, her default seemed to be humor and curiosity. They made for excellent if morbid coping mechanisms and worked well for her on crime scenes. Now it seemed that they were an excellent buffer against the existential dread of Hell. 

Mineos’ lips curled; the two massive horns beside his face dug further into the ground when he dipped his head. “You have walked the beast road, and only the living can do that.”

Ella frowned. “Wait. Hold up. Are you saying I’m _still alive_?” 

Mineos nodded. 

She turned and looked back at Dwayne and the Japanese grandmother. Dwayne gaped at her and mouthed “what the fuck?” She shrugged back at him, unsure. 

Mineos continued. “Few living humans have ventured into Hell. But you have been Chosen to do so, so journey you shall.” 

“I’m not sure about this journey thing. If you point me the way I need to go, I’ll get out of your horns, and we can chalk this up to a”—she waved her hands around—“heat-induced fever dream.”

“You have been Chosen,” Mineos stated. “There is no going back.” 

“Okay. First of all, that whole Chosen One trope only works in movies and it’s been overdone. And you’re not giving me good information, my dude. Where am I journeying to? And who did the choosing? Why me?”

“You have been Chosen.” 

Ella clenched her hands. “I know. You said that already”

“The only way out is through,” Mineos rumbled, ignoring her irritation. An enormous hand gestured towards the opening at its back. Ella squinted. The hand looked vaguely human-shaped, but the claws on the end looked almost cloven. It was brain-bendingly weird. 

“So, let me get this straight. Someone chose me to journey. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, but I have to walk through Hell to get out of Hell? That doesn’t sound like it makes sense or is even close to safe or sane.”

“Hell is neither safe nor sane. But as you are a living human your protector will accompany you and buffer your body and soul as best it’s able.” 

The little scrub jay on Ella’s head hopped into the air and swooped over her head, scolding Mineos. 

“He is protective of you. Keep him close. Without him you will be easy prey for the demons and creatures that call this place home. Your journey is a long one, but you won’t be the first living human to traverse Hell and return to their earthly home.” 

“Oh, dude, so he _is_ a spirit guide or a patronus, or something. That’s awesome!” She paused. “Oh, wait, now it’s hitting me that Dante, like _that_ Dante, was telling the truth when he wrote _Dante’s Inferno_. He really did go to Hell? He wasn’t just hitting the good stuff and ragging on people he hated?” 

Mineos' great eyes rolled in his head, and the saliva that hit the ground below seemed to sizzle even hotter. “Dante was not the first living human to venture into Hell, but he is the most well-known amongst the living. I took great pleasure sorting his soul when he finally stood before me, bereft of his earthly flesh.” 

“Oh, shit, Dante’s in Hell. It really is his inferno.” 

“He was a gossip and a liar, but it was his guilt that damned him,” Mineos said in a tone that would have put even the most strict Catholic school teacher to shame. “Humans send themselves to Hell through their own guilt, and Dante is now one of many who reside here.” He shook his enormous head, sending saliva flying. “He is not well liked in Hell. He twisted what he saw to his own ends and slandered the name of our king.” 

“Your king,” Ella repeated. “Oh. _Oh_. You mean the Devil. The actual Devil, who’s down here in Hell, being King of Hell. That Devil.” 

"The Devil once greeted all souls who descended to his realm, in a time when humans were not so plentiful. But the tasks of a King are many, and so the role fell to me. I serve my King faithfully and with honor. I trust that you will give an honest accounting of your time in Hell and not slander the name of my King as Dante Alighieri did.”

“Oh, I can do that, no problem here. I had a friend who was really into the whole Devil thing, and he hated being bad mouthed.” She threw a fist up into the air. “Team Satan!”

Mineos snorted. “Be careful where you tread, Ella Lopez, forensic scientist of the LAPD. Hell is dangerous, even to those who call it home, and it is shaped by the whims of its king.”

She shivered as a chill ran down her spine. 

“So what do I do?” Ella asked. “I’m supposed to journey, but where?” 

“To the King’s Seat in the Ninth Circle. Only then will you be able to return to the life you left behind.” 

“And I just walk there?”

Mineos gestured to the canyon behind him. “The only way out is through.” 

“Right. Didn’t Dante have a guide who wasn’t a bird?” 

“Dante lied,” Mineos replied flatly. 

"Okay. So I’ll just be on my way I guess.” She threw two nervous thumbs up towards the goat creature and inched her way out of the circle. Percy landed on her shoulder and plucked at her ponytail. 

“May I never see you before me again,” Mineos finished. The words sounded like a dirge as his voice rose and fell. His strange eyes held hers for a long moment before drifting to Dwayne and the Japanese Grandma waiting behind him. 

Ella attempted a bow that turned into a weird curtsy as she stumbled away from the circle. This was one of the weirdest things that had ever happened to her in the whole of her life. 

A life that she was still living. 

So she’d wandered into freaking Hell and was being sent off to just…what? Wander her way through it? She’d gone on video game quests that provided more information. 

Percy continued fussing with her hair as she crunched her way alongside the enormous bulk of Mineos’ pulsating body. She frowned down at her feet and grimaced. What she’d thought was gravel was actually dried skin that had flaked off of Mineos. 

Dwayne’s voice rose up behind her. She wanted to turn around and look. He’d been nice. No matter what he’d done to end up in Hell, he’d still been kind when she’d needed it most. 

A sheer stone wall loomed in front of her. The canyon the souls were sucked through was a jagged crack in the stone directly behind Mineos. It was easy to miss, from the rim of the valley. Mineos bulk commanded attention, but every damned soul was sucked into this crack after their judgement was passed. 

And now she was going to go the same way. 

Ella took a deep breath, tried to ignore Dwayne’s crying, and stepped into the Second Circle of Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is being kind to themselves and practicing their social distancing. I've not left my house in a week and a half!


	4. And to a place I come where nothing shines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some trigger warnings in this chapter. Torture, murder, a little castration. Nothing terribly graphic or dark, but it's Hell and people do awful things. 
> 
> Pretty sure the title 'Him Below' is from Good Omens, but I find it delightful as a title.

The sun beat down on hot sand as blue waves crashed on a California beach. Couples lounged on towels while kids built sand castles. Laughter drifted on the wind.

Lucifer Morningstar, King of Hell and Him Below, The Adversary, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Satan, Old Scratch, former club owner and LAPD consultant, was not hiding. 

He stretched out his long legs and tucked his toes into the sand. The umbrella over his chair provided scant shade from the heat of the sun. 

A woman screamed. A piercing shriek that spoke of anguish and torment. The beachgoers ignored her as she sobbed at the edge of the crashing waves. 

Lucifer sighed. This Hell loop was the closest he’d found to the beach he so liked to frequent back in Los Angeles. The real Los Angeles. Not this simulation of a city built from the memories of a tortured soul. Further out in the ocean, the woman’s son was drowning. Over and over and over again, she watched him drown. She screamed for help while the crowd did nothing. 

But most importantly, after the loop reset, there was a brief moment of peace, before her anguish kicked in. 

He could pretend that he was just waiting, enjoying the day before he was called back to Lux. Before he was called back to the precinct. 

The woman screamed again. She ran from person to person, begging, pleading for someone to save her son. The lifeguard in the tower swiped at his cell phone, completely unconcerned as she sobbed beneath him. 

He watched the boy’s head duck under the waves. There was no splashing or hand waving or calls for help. Drowning was a quiet affair for the most part, none of the drama that television and movies like to convey. Lungs filled with water as the victim panicked, as they panicked it became worse. A feedback loop of death. 

“Help,” the woman sobbed. “Please, someone. _Please_.” 

Lucifer crossed his ankles and closed his eyes. The loop would reset soon, and he would grab what few moments of peace he could from someone else’s memories. 

The little tickle at the back of his head hadn’t disappeared since he’d first felt it in Dr. Kaalund’s Hell loop. It shifted and morphed and sometimes was hard to find, but it was still there. Just a tiny warp in the fabric of Hell. It almost felt like the birth of a star, from back when that had been his primary responsibility. Tiny, barely noticeable as it was born, but warping the space around it. 

He’d left the disastrous therapist appointment and reappeared in the First Circle, high about Mineos and his tiny court. 

He’d circled, his wings catching the heat from the updrafts, undetected by the slug and his attendants. Once upon a time, Lucifer was able to personally greet each soul that found themselves in Hell, but as the human population had increased, he found that he didn’t have the patience for it. Mineos was an excellent substitute. All the slug wanted to do was sleep. A little adjusting here and there, and Mineos could while away his days in a doze, waking up long enough to get the room assignments seen to.

Lucifer could do whatever he wanted, Mineos barely had to work, and the human souls could get on with the business of self-flagellation. Win. Win. Win. 

Ages had passed since Lucifer had visited the First Circle. There was no reason to go, really. Mineos was a terrible conversationalist, and he didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with groveling demons. 

The slug must have finished up with the newest arrivals before Lucifer was overhead. Mineos had figured out long ago that if he let them pile up a bit before dealing with them, he could sleep longer. 

It was an eternity of torment, so Lucifer wasn’t bothered if they stewed in the First Circle before entering their rooms. 

He didn’t particularly care what went on in Hell as long as the demons didn’t get any novel ideas about Earth. 

Lucifer sighed. He could have stopped and asked Mineos if he’d noticed anything, if any of the new arrivals had seemed strange or off, but he hadn’t. Drifting on the wind, wings spread, ash fouling his feathers, it was all he could do keep himself aloft. 

He really needed to find a good therapist. 

The loop reset. A gull cried overhead, and a child giggled nearby. 

Lucifer’s fingers twitched, itching for a cigarette. 

“My King,” a quavery voice said. 

Lucifer rolled his head against the back of the lounge chair and opened his eyes.  
His council member bowed low, spindly arms crossed over a sunken chest. “Your Council awaits you, My King.”

The little star was far away and barely noticeable. It could wait. He had all the time in Hell to deal with it. 

Down by the ocean, the woman started screaming.

* * *

Ella stepped through the narrow crack and gasped as hot wind slapped her in the face. 

Percy squawked directly into her ear, pulled on her hair, and then scrambled into her hood. She could feel his tiny bird claws scrabbling against the base of her neck and his tail against her cheek as he hid his head against the fabric. He would probably climb all the way down her back if he could. 

She pressed herself against the rock wall and felt her way forward, trying to keep her face turned away from the blowing sand. 

The wind screamed.

No. 

Dwayne was screaming. 

She clung to the wall as Dwayne barreled into her, pulled along by the wind. She toppled onto the ground and gasped as the wind dragged him further down the narrow canyon. His fingers clawed at nothing, and his face was set in a rictus of fear. His screams merged with the wailing of the wind until she couldn’t tell the two apart. Their eyes met for a brief moment. A tiny sliver of connection before he was whipped around a bend and the screams receded. 

The wind remained, hot and blowing, but Dwayne’s screams were little more than a lingering echo. 

He’d been nice to her. For all his faults, for everything that he’d done to be in Hell, he’d been nice.

* * *

Ella tumbled through the canyon, buffeted by the wind, her feet digging into the sand and her hands grasping at rocks as she tried to keep her feet under her. 

The Japanese grandmother wailed as she blew past. 

Ella screwed her eyes shut and sang, “Poor unfortunate souls, in pain, in need,” under her breath. Was it morbid to sing Disney songs in Hell? Maybe, but when in need of a coping mechanism she wasn’t going to judge. “This one longing to be thinner. That one wants to get the girl…” 

She inched along the wall, her fingernails digging into the rock at her back. It wasn’t quick, but it was the only way to stay on her feet. 

Ella stumbled out of the crack into a swirling vortex of wind. She screamed as she was knocked off her feet and buffeted about. She landed on her back in a pile of sand and stared up at Dwayne and the Japanese grandmother. The wind tore at them, spinning them around each other in the middle of the circular rock walls. They screamed and cried, and every nerve in Ella’s body jangled. Percy clutched her hoodie, and his small claws pinched at the skin of her neck. 

A door appeared in the rock wall high above Ella’s head. One moment it was nothing but sheer rock face, and then a door. A rickety apartment door with scuffs on it, as if someone had kicked it one too many times. It was rattling in its frame. It swung open, and Dwayne screamed as he was sucked inside. 

The door slammed shut and vanished, taking Dwayne’s anguish with it. 

Ella looked up at the spinning Japanese woman and gulped. She plucked Percy out of her hoodie, ignoring the birds startled squawk, wrapped him in her arms, and rolled.

Percy screeched, and the wind tore at her hoodie as she scrambled across the sandy floor, making for the opening in the rock wall. A hard gust of wind picked her up and threw her into the wall. She yelped as the wind scraped her along the sandy ground.

The woman screamed. 

A door slammed. 

The wind died. 

Ella picked herself up off the ground. Percy’s claws dug into the front of her hoodie as he churred into her neck. “It’s okay,” Ella whispered. “We’re fine. We’re fine. It’s okay.” She repeated the litany to herself, as she staggered toward the exit. 

Percy was warm against her chest. Her hand cupped his back, over the grey splotch across his shoulders. His feathers were the only thing that felt real to her. 

She still couldn’t figure out why, out of all the people on Earth, she was one of the few to somehow stumble her way into Hell. Was it all the dead bodies? She did have a macabre sense of humor, but it was kind of a job requirement for anyone who wanted to make forensics their career path. “Maybe it’s Lucifer,” she mumbled into Percy’s feathers and laughed. “I can’t imagine him actually being the Devil. He’s just a guy with a fucked up childhood and too much money. Rich people get away with all kinds of things.” 

Percy scrambled up her shirt to her shoulder and started preening her messy hair. She was sure that her ponytail looked like Dali was her hairdresser.

She kept walking. One foot in front of the other. 

Now that she was through the vortex, the canyon had changed. Doors were set into the windswept rock—on either side and as far as she could see. Some were half buried in sand; others looked like they’d been set there that day. Most were made of wood, a few of metal. One had elaborate iron lizards set into the hinges. 

Ella kept walking, wishing she’d asked Mineos for a map. Or maybe for an escort. What good was a guide if all they wanted to do was sit on your shoulder and mess with your hair? It was no wonder Dante went on and on about Virgil showing him around Hell. A bird? No one would have taken that seriously. 

She pulled her phone out and groaned at the shattered screen. She shoved it back into her pocket. Her sense of time was all turned around, and, as far as she could tell, wherever this part of Hell was, the sky didn’t change. It was perpetually dim, stuck in a moment of time with churning storm clouds and indeterminate light. It made for a weird combination of darks and lights with the red glow of the clouds being her only source of illumination. 

Percy stamped a foot on her shoulder and stood up straight, looking behind her. A distant scream echoed down the canyon corridor followed by whooping and laughter. Ella froze, and the beating of her heart was loud in her ears. 

The scrub jay pecked her cheek and launched himself off of her shoulder. Ella took off after the bird. Her heart hammered as the screaming got closer. As fast as she was running, whatever was behind her was moving faster. 

The jay circled above her head, urging her on.

Something screamed behind her. 

Ella threw herself at the closest door. She pulled it open with more force than necessary and toppled through. Percy zipped after her. She slammed the door shut and leaned against it, trying to stop her entire body from shaking. 

She frowned. 

She was on a narrow cobblestone street lined with shabby wooden houses. The moon was big and bright overhead, the only source of illumination. A stiff wind blew garbage down the street. One of the pieces of paper had writing on it, although she wasn’t sure what language she was looking at. 

Ella gaped. 

She forced one shaky foot to move, followed by the other, and tottered into the middle of the street. “Okay, Ella, it’s fine. It’s totally fine,” she whispered to herself. “You always wanted to travel. Look, it’s Europe. Maybe? Hell Europe? Nah, that doesn’t sound right. Someone’s version of Hell is Europe?”

A door banged open, and a screaming woman ran out into the street from the house across from her. She was in a long, white nightdress, and her hair was a messy tumble of long, mouse brown hair. A young man followed her, wearing breeches, a waistcoat and an askew white wig. The woman continued to scream while the young man launched into what sounded like an accusing litany. The words were coming fast and furious and sounded vaguely Germanic. Or Dutch. Something in that realm. 

“Whoa,” Ella said. She looked around frantically. The woman was gesturing at the man, tearing into him verbally. The whiplash of walking from a sandy corridor into an angry tirade from the past was making her head pound. She fell back on her default. She’d been raised with argumentative brothers. Mediator was a role she knew well. “Hey, guys, maybe you should, I dunno, chill. Take a deep breath. Maybe hug it out? That always works for me.” 

The woman’s screams tapered off as the man shouted over her, his tone angry and confrontational. Her hands covered her face as she sobbed into them. 

Ella waved her hands. “Hi, guys, I’m sure we can fix this. Or not. It’s Hell, but hey, we can try.”

They didn’t even look at Ella. She was only about ten feet away, and they were so embroiled in the argument they didn’t seem to care who was around. 

The woman shrieked, and, with a knife Ella hadn’t seen before, reached out and slit the man’s throat. Hot blood sprayed out of the wound and down the front of the woman’s white nightgown. The man sank to his knees, clutching at the woman and gargling out what few words he could before slumping to the ground.

“Whoa! Whoa. Whoa. _Whoa_. You didn’t have to kill him!” Ella shouted. 

The woman stood there, as if Ella didn’t exist, knife in one hand, covered in blood, gaping down at the corpse. She screamed. And didn’t stop. 

Ella froze. The night was balmy and warm, but she was chilled to her very bones by the murder she’d just witnessed. She’d analyzed more corpses than she cared to remember, but seeing someone die… That was something she’d never experienced before. 

Percy cheeped softly into her ear and rearranged her hair.

The air shimmered. The woman and corpse vanished. The night was still and silent once more. A door burst open across from her; the same woman came storming out of the house screaming. 

Ella stumbled back. 

And bumped into someone standing behind her. 

She yelped and whirled around. She hadn’t noticed over all the screaming, but someone had followed her through the door. 

Her heart leapt into her throat as the moon illuminated the creature standing behind her. 

It was human-sized and vaguely human-shaped, but that’s where the similarities ended. Giant yellow eyes blinked at her from an owlish face. It had frayed, grey feathers that sloped down over a yellow beak. Its neck was long and sinuous and extended from a body that thankfully had two arms and two legs. It wore tattered pants and a long raggedy coat. Its hands were human-shaped but tipped with talons. It was a mishmash of parts and traits that had Ella’s brain wanting to take cover in a dark corner and shake

She drew in an unsteady breath, held up her hands, and backed away. 

The creature clacked its beak three times, the sounds sharp over the caterwauling of the now blood-soaked woman. 

Its neck extended even further so its head was a full foot in front of its body as it narrowed its eyes and looked Ella up and down. It rumbled out harsh-sounding words.

“Hi,” Ella stammered out. “I, um… I shouldn’t have barged in.” She took a few steps back, distantly wondering if the doors in the other houses led anywhere or if it was just the door that she had come through. The door that the creature was standing in front of. “Total fan of owls by the way. Yay owls.” She gave it two thumbs up and skittered around the edge of the screaming woman and the corpse, putting the oblivious soul between her and it. 

It hissed. 

The scene reset. The woman and corpse vanished. Ella looked around, shocked. 

“You don’t belong here,” the creature rasped out. “I saw you come in. This isn’t your loop.”

Ella’s eyebrows raised.

BANG. The woman stormed out, screaming. 

Ella stepped out of the woman’s way before she was run over. “I think I’m a bit lost.” 

“A bit lost,” the owl creature stated flatly. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you mean _hoo_ are you?”

The creature’s head tilted on its sinuous neck.

Ella gestured at its disk-shaped face and beak. “Because of, you know, looking like an owl. They hoot?”

The creature blinked. 

“Yeah. It was a bad joke.” 

The creature’s long neck shortened in on itself until its head was sitting back on its shoulders. Maybe it was less a giraffe-owl hybrid and instead was the product of the talking flowers in _Alice in Wonderland_ getting it on with an owl? The long, taloned hand gestured in her direction. “You are alive?”

Blood squirted as the woman slit her companion’s neck. Screaming filled the night. 

“So Mineos told me,” Ella replied. “I’m a tad confused about how I got here, but I’ve got theories.” She held up a hand and ticked them off on her fingers. “Theory number one: this is all really happening, and I accidentally wandered into Hell because my friends’ dog ran off. Theory number two: I’m dreaming, and theory number three: I stupidly decided to do drugs again, and I’m having a really bad trip. Or, theory number four, and this one is gaining traction. I really am dead, I’m in Hell, and this is an elaborate joke, and all the demons are laughing at me because I somehow think I’ve been ‘chosen’, when this is all just an elaborate torture escape room.”

The creature took a step forward; the long talons on its feet scraped across the cobblestones. It twisted its head an unnatural amount and blinked its great yellow eyes at her. 

“I’m operating under the assumption that I’m experiencing theory number one, but I’m willing to be surprised. I’d really appreciate this all being some weird dream.” Ella smiled brightly at the creature. Was it a demon? It had to be. Why else would it be wandering around Hell? “So, um, I’m Ella. What’s your name?” she asked, feeling like her skin was about to itch off as the woman disappeared and silence reigned again. 

A long pause. The creature didn’t answer. 

“You should not hand your name over,” the creature said. 

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. I didn’t know Hell was picky about names. Do names mean something different down here? I wouldn’t want to mess up on my Hell etiquette. Wow. There’s an idea. Demons have etiquette. Should I pick a fake name? Would that matter? Elaine? Bella? Oh, no, not Bella. That brings back too many memories of my _Twilight_ days. And it’s best we leave those firmly in the past. Oh, _oh_. I know. Eleanor. I’ll tell everyone I’m Eleanor Shellstrop. It’ll be hilarious.”

The creature clacked its beak again. 

“Oh, sorry. You probably wouldn’t get that joke. I promise it’s funny. Because this is the Bad Place?”

The feathers around its head rustled. “I will not give you my name,” the creature ground out. 

“That’s okay. I’m not pushy. I don’t want to step on your toes or anything.”

The demon looked down at its feet. It tapped its talons on the cobblestones. “Why would you step on my toes?”

BANG. The woman stormed out, screaming. 

Ella tried to focus on the creature in front of her. Her brain kept holding up “danger!” signs every time she looked at the demon, and the screaming and horrible murder weren’t helping. She’d never been an anxious person, but she was well on her way to becoming an anxiety-riddled mess. “It’s just a turn of phrase. It means I won’t bother you about it.” 

They stood there, on the cobblestones of a long vanished street, staring at each other. Blood squirted. The woman screamed, and the man gurgled. 

“So, um, what’s the big deal with names?” Ella asked. “Does this only go for a demon telling a human its name? Do demons tell each other their names? Are names super secret special? If you don’t know each other’s names, do you just refer to yourselves by numbers or something?”

The demon hissed. “You are a living human.” 

“Yup. So I’ve been told.” 

“If you know my name, you could summon me. You would have power over me.”

“Oh. That’s kinda neat. I mean, not for you. There are some serious consent issues tied up in that. But, if I knew your name, could I summon you if I’m in Hell with you? How does that work? Oh, _dude_ , does this mean demon summonings are a thing? Like, thirteen-year-old me playing with candles and ouija boards could have actually summoned a demon from my bedroom? Oh, that would have been so cool.” The demon hissed. “Or not,” Ella finished. “It would be totally irresponsible to summon a demon and make them do things.” She scuffed her tennis shoe in the sand. “So, um, what should I call you?”

It gurgled something in the back of its throat. 

“I don’t think my vocal cords will make that noise. Sorry, dude.” 

Blood spurted and the woman screamed. 

“So, this is really messing with my head. Just sitting here chatting with a demon while a dude is murdered over and over again.” She gestured at the screaming woman. “I don’t know how much more my nerves can handle the constant murder replay. So is there any way to help them? I don’t know what the deal is, but this seems like overkill.”

The owl creature looked at the blood soaked couple. “ _Her_ ,” it said. “She is the only soul here, and it is the right amount of kill.”

“Whoa, so the guy she’s murdering over and over again is fake?”

The demon shook its head. “It’s a Hell loop.”

“Okay, dude, she’s definitely looping.”

The demon hissed. “She has made her own Hell and will live out her worst moment for the rest of eternity. The only one who can help her is herself.” 

The loop reset. 

BANG. The woman stormed out, screaming. 

Ella gestured at the woman storming out of the house, the fake man hot on her heels. “But I don’t think she realizes what’s happening.” 

The demon shrugged, his long taloned fingers twitching in a gesture that very clearly said ‘not my problem.’

“If she’s making her own Hell,” Ella said, as blood sprayed and the woman began sobbing. “why are you here?” Her voice lowered. “Are you going to torture her more?”

One slow blink. “You came in here so I followed.” 

“So we’re just perving on her personal Hell?”

The demon nodded. 

Ella bit her lip and looked at the screaming women. “There’s nothing I can do? Maybe I can shake her out of it?” 

The loop reset. 

Percy chirped and rubbed his head against her cheek. Ella gulped, feeling like a failure. This poor woman had been stuck down here for probably hundreds of years reliving her biggest mistake over and over again, and there was nothing Ella could do to help. Not that she was excusing murder, but hundreds of years of torment seemed like a few hundred years too much. 

The screaming started. 

Ella ducked her head, tried to squash her feelings, and headed for the door. The owl creature’s head rotated as she passed until he was looking over his back at her. 

She wiped at her eyes, not wanting the demon to see her crying, opened the door and slipped back out in Hell. 

The demon shuffled out after her. The door shut, and the screaming stopped.

Silence. 

Perfect, oppressive silence. 

Ella sniffed and looked away, unsure about the scrutiny the demon was directing her way. His large, yellow eyes were unwavering as he looked at her. 

She dug her toe into the sand. “So what do you do? If you’re not here to torture me.”

The demon clacked his beak. His feathers ruffled around his face. “I am stationed on this level as one of the demons that His Greatness, Lord Mineos, has command over. Here in the Second Circle, the souls torture themselves. So I patrol the corridors.” 

“That sounds kinda boring,” Ella said, quieting the part of her that was screaming ‘demon.’ 

“I used to be stationed in Dís itself, before I was demoted and reassigned.” 

“Ah, man, bummer,” Ella replied. 

Percy hopped off her shoulder to bounce around her feet. Ella shifted, unsure about the awkward silence and grasped for something to say. “So, what do you do for fun? If you aren’t, um, torturing souls.” 

The demon’s yellow eyes practically lit up; he clapped his taloned hands together. “I watch,” he said and gestured at the doors. “So many stories from Earth.” 

“Oh, like TV? I watch so much TV. What’s your favorite story from Earth?” 

“I shall show you.” His taloned hand wrapped around her wrist, and Ella jerked forward as the demon took off at a trot. Percy hopped back and warbled as they passed, and Ella could hear the rush of furious flapping as he sought to catch up with her. 

“Here, here, here, here,” the demon mumbled back at her as she was pulled through a variety of twists and turns and dragged down a sandy hill and underneath towering rock formations that looked as if they’d topple at any moment. The door the demon pulled her to was simple wood tucked away under an overhang. Percy landed on her back with a rush of wings. Small clawed feet held on to her shirt as the demon pushed the door open. 

Ella followed him through, convinced this was all a ploy and she was really walking into a date with an iron maiden. 

She stepped into the sunny courtyard of a small church. Birds chirped and fluttered around the trees. Monks sat at small tables, pots of paints and brushes littering the work surface.

Ella blinked, taken aback by the idyllic scene. She drifted away from the demon and walked along the rows of desks, gaping down at the illuminated manuscripts. The pages were white and pristine, and the paint glistened. She stopped to watch one monk deftly apply gold leaf, fascinated by the process. 

Her demonic companion followed along behind her, his neck extended to full length to look down at the pages. “Isn’t it wonderful?” he warbled at her. 

Ella looked back at him. His eyes were wide and large and focused on a tiny illustration of a mouse riding a frog one of the monks was scribbling into the corner of a page. 

She could practically feel the “awwww” burbling around inside of her at the sight of the demon so taken with the artwork the monks were working so hard on. "It’s awesome, dude,” she replied, reaching out to pat the demon on the shoulder. 

She caught herself when her hand was halfway extended. The demon’s head swiveled on his long neck, and his eyes narrowed at her outstretched hand. Ella gave a nervous laugh and pulled back, waving at the manuscripts. “These are great. So I watched this awesome documentary about illuminated manuscripts and how they’re made. The paper isn’t actually paper; it’s parchment and made out of _skin_.”

The demon’s eyes widened, and he burbled a happy noise. “Their own skin?” 

Ella glanced over at the monks. “Nope. Animal skins. Sheep I think, or maybe calves. It’s been awhile since I saw it. But it was so cool. They scraped away the fur and flesh and stretched it on a frame. They’d keep scraping and stretching until it got to the right thickness to be used as paper.” 

The burbling intensified, and the demon clapped his hands together. “I have seen this! My Lord Belial had a book made and used the skin from the damned. It explains so much. I did not understand why we had to skin the souls for a book.” It clucked in the back of its throat. “Such ingenuity.”

“Please tell me it’s not named the _Necronomicon_?”

“Why would a book have a name?” 

“Phew, one less thing to worry about. Thank God!”

The demon hissed, his talons flexed and his feathers fluffed up. 

“Or, um, praise Satan!”

The demon’s beak opened but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a flurry of activity at the end of the courtyard. A severe-looking older man marched down the aisles of furiously working monks. His march ended at one of the tables in the middle. A young monk with brown hair, wide eyes, and crooked teeth stared back. The monk put down his paintbrush as the abbot launched into a tirade that Ella couldn’t understand. The blood drained out of the monk’s face as he started to shake. All the other monks stopped what they were doing and stared at the young man with looks of disdain and disgust. 

The abbot pointed at two soldiers who were dragging another man with them. His clothes were tattered but showed signs of being well taken care of. He was young, about the same age as the monk. 

The monks stood as one and moved the tables out of the way. The young man in the tattered clothes was dragged forward. The monk, his arm held tightly in the grasp of the abbot, openly sobbed. The soldiers kicked the young man’s feet out from under him, and once he was on the ground, one soldier held him down while the other tugged the pants off the struggling man. 

The abbot sneered at the monk and handed him a knife. The monk knelt between the thighs of the sobbing man and, with tears running down his face, started repeating, “ic pro brytsnian. ic pro brytsnian,” as he began cutting with the knife. 

The young man screamed. 

And screamed. 

And screamed. 

Ella looked away, her stomach churning, unable to watch the castration. 

The demon stood outside the circle of monks, completely engrossed in the illuminated manuscripts. He pinched the parchment between his talons and delicately turned the pages, cooing over each one. 

Ella huddled in on herself and drifted back to his side. She glanced at the pages that had once seemed so beautiful and felt rocks settle in the pit of her stomach. 

The demon glanced her way. He cooed again, low in his throat, and one taloned hand drifted over an illustration of a woman in a blue dress. Ella tried to focus, but the screaming wouldn’t stop. 

“Why?” she tried to say, but fumbled over the simple word. She tried again. “Why are they making him do this?”

The demon stepped to the next desk and blinked at the half finished text on the page. A snake twinned its way through the branches of a tree on the paper; its tiny jeweled scales glittered in the sun as the ink dried. 

The feathers around the demon’s facial disk flattened and then puffed up. “This is his Hell loop. Like the one we just came from; it’s how this human has chosen to punish himself.” 

“But why?” Ella asked. She jumped when the desks vanished and the loop reset, the monks back to sitting and working in the quiet of the afternoon. “What did he do that was so bad that he’s torturing himself forever?”

The demon’s long neck twisted to look at the lines the monk in question was inking. “His name is Leofric,” he said. “He lay with one of the local farmers that supplies the monastery. He feels he has sinned by loving this man, and his guilt has brought him here.” 

“That’s not okay,” Ella said, stepping back as the abbot stormed out of the doors of the church, soldiers and farmer in tow. “There’s nothing wrong with loving someone else.” 

Her companion’s head twisted so he was looking at her upside down. “What you think does not matter. Human guilt is what brings souls here, and human guilt is what keeps them here. Leofric’s guilt is the only thing that matters in this room.”

“So if he stops feeling guilty, he can leave?” She gestured at the door she had come through earlier.

“It is unheard of. Souls are taken out of their rooms by demons, but none have ever wandered out on their own.”

“But it could happen?” 

The demon clicked his talons along one of the desks that had just been moved while the monks were circling. “It could, but I do not know what would happen should a soul stop feeling guilt and leave. It has never happened before.”

The screaming started to crescendo. Loefric’s chanting was becoming more frantic. 

Ella chewed her lip and looked up at the trees. Percy fluttered and hopped from branch to branch, gamboling with the fake birds in the Hell loop, completely unaffected by the human suffering going on below. 

“If I spoke with him, would he understand me?” She finally asked. “I can’t understand what he’s saying, but you seem to grasp it just fine.”

“If you were of Hell, he may understand. But you are alive.” The feathers of the demon’s facial disk fluffed out only to smooth back. “I do not know what kind of influence a living human would have.” He grumbled in the back of his throat. “I do not understand why you care. You do not know this human.”

“It doesn’t matter if I know him. I still want to help. This is awful. Eternal torture because you loved someone. That’s not fair.” 

Large yellow eyes blinked at her. “What does fair have to do with it? You cannot change this.”

“I can try,” Ella shot back. 

The demon made an unconvinced noise. 

The loop reset. 

She chewed on her lip and clung to her frayed nerves as an actual god’s honest demon looked at her like she was the weirdo. She took a deep breath, gulped, and stormed over to where Leofric was sitting. His head hunched over the table as he carefully inked letters on his parchment. 

“Hey, Leofric,” Ella shouted, slapping her hands on the table. The little jar of ink sloshed and toppled with the force. The monk didn’t react. “Wake up, dude.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. Nothing happened. 

The door to the monastery flung open as the abbot began his angry march towards the working monks. 

“Hey,” Ella tried again, grabbing the monk’s face and forcing him to look at her. “This is not real. Leofric, you can stop this. You’re doing it to yourself. You can stop it.” 

Leofric’s eyes gazed through her as if she wasn’t there. 

The abbot began his tirade, and Ella felt ridiculous jumping around like she was. But she couldn’t stop. She shouted. She waved her arms. She tugged at Leofric. She tried to pull the soldiers off of him. All that happened was that she was shunted out of the way and the loop carried on like it had before she tried to intervene. 

Ella turned away as the screaming began again and stared up at the branches of the tree rustling in the breeze. The birds chirped and the sun shone and there was so much screaming. 

The demon stood next to her. His long neck curved so he was looking down at her upturned face. Without the freakish neck, he was just a little taller than her; with it he could look down at her from a foot above. His beak clacked, and he hissed. 

“He does not want to hear,” the demon said. “His guilt is set deep.”

Ella sniffed and brushed at the tears that were blurring her vision. “So that’s it?” she rasped, her throat scratchy and raw from the screaming she had just done. “You feel guilty about something, go to Hell and just replay it for all of eternity? How can he even begin to deal with the guilt if he doesn’t know where he is?”

Yellow eyes blinked down at her. “Humans want to be tortured. It’s why they are here. If you want to know more you would need to ask a duke.” His facial disk fluffed and ruffled. “Maybe even an archduke. Or you would need to ask _Him Below_.” 

“Are you talking about _The Devil_? Like I could walk up and be like, ‘hey dude, please explain these Hell loops to me, and while you’re at it, could we maybe brainstorm some fixes for this messed up place? I have a friend who’s your biggest fan, so that makes us buds, right?’”

The screams cut out and the loop reset. Percy swooped down to land on her shoulder. The demon gestured towards the door, and Ella trudged towards it with a heavy heart. 

She stepped back out in the dark canyon. Heat blasted her in the face, and sand shifted under her tennis shoes. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to acclimate from the bright sunshine of the Hell loop to the red sky and darkness of Hell. 

Hell. She was in Hell. Where people were being tortured for all of eternity. Over and over and over again. Oh, and the Devil was _real_. Ella shivered. 

She’d never thought too deeply about Hell and what it would be like. Her view of it had largely been a product of pop culture with a heaping dose of _Fantasia_. Even with Lucifer insisting that he was the Devil, it just wasn’t something she spent time thinking about. She’d never been big on fire and brimstone. She liked focusing on the happier things: God’s love, forgiveness, redemption. Those things. 

And now she was in Hell and expected to walk through it. For what? Why? What was the point of journeying through Hell only to go back to Earth? Was she supposed to get behind the pulpit when this was all over? Or maybe start a weirdo religious cult? Or maybe blog about it?

She crossed her arms, clutched at her elbows and gulped for air. 

This wasn’t happening. 

This wasn’t _happening_.

 _This wasn’t happening_. 

Her heart pounded. Something was breathing in her ear, harsh ragged breaths. 

A bird called out in the distance. 

It called again. 

Something pulled at her hoodie. 

Something bit her on the lip. 

Ella shrieked and batted at Percy. “What the…. Percival!” she shouted.

He clutched the front of her hoodie, his talons buried in the fabric, his small face even with her own and chirped at her. 

The demon tilted his head. “Are you broken?”

“Am I what? Broken? No. Why?”

“You were not responding. Do living humans do that often?”

Ella sighed. “It’s called a panic attack. And I’m totally allowed to freak out.” She gestured at the doors and rocks. “I’m in Hell and chit-chatting with a demon and just witnessed horrific torture. I think a panic attack is within my rights.” Percy warbled up at her and butted his head against her chin. “I don’t even know where I’m supposed to go. The King’s Seat? Where even is that? I don’t have a map. Do I just wander around asking passing demons for directions? I don’t know! My guide is a bird and doesn’t talk! No wonder Dante made up freaking Virgil. When I get home, I’m telling everyone that Selena descended from Heaven and gave me a personal tour. I’ll be locked up for being crazy, but at least I’ll be on Earth, just, you know, looney toons, loco, crazy.”

“I will show you the way,” the demon replied. 

“You’d what now? Seriously? Why?” She narrowed her eyes. “Is this some ploy to drag me off to be tortured or something?”

The demon’s head swayed on its long neck. He really did look like the morbid love child of a giraffe and an owl. His beak opened and closed and opened again before he replied. “I will show you of my own free will.” His head tilted sideways.

Ella raised her eyebrows. “I feel like there’s a catch.” 

“You must not summon me,” the demon replied. 

“Dude, I wouldn’t even know how to summon a demon. That is not a problem.” Ella paused. “Why are you really helping me? Wouldn’t you be deserting your post? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with Mineos.”

The demon clicked its beak and flexed its talons. “Mineos does not care. He does his duty and sleeps. There is nothing of interest in the Second Circle. The souls of this plane see to themselves. The demons here, what few of us there are, keep the line and stop any unruly soul that tries to leave. But that is rare, and I am seldom needed. Dís is where I have been stationed since I crawled from the fire. It’s all I have known until I was sent here.” His yellow eyes flicked away.

“Oh, dude, I’m sorry.” 

“I would fail in my duty if I let you leave without supervision. You are a living human and cannot be trusted.” 

“Whoa. Harsh.”

“I was sent to the Second Circle for my failures.” The feathers along the top of his head flattened. “I wish to serve my King. It is said that when those who are alive walk in Hell, chaos cannot help but walk with them.” 

“I totally don’t want to make waves. I just wanna go home. You won’t find any chaos here.”

“You tried to help Leofric with his guilt,” the demon pointed out. “That is not the way of things.” 

“Yeah, you’ve got a point there.” Ella glanced around the corridor and stepped away from Leofric’s door. Percy perched on her shoulder and twisted his head back so he could preen his tail. “Will you get in trouble by helping me?” 

The demon shook his head, a strange look on a creature whose head was currently two feet above their shoulders. “Mineos does not care. If he does not care, neither will the other demons.”

“What about the Devil?”

The demon squawked, made a complicated gesture with taloned hands, and bowed his long neck. He straightened up, pulling at his ill fitting clothes and looking around nervously. “Him Below would never notice one such as I. Him Below has bigger concerns.”

“Would Him Below notice a human?” Ella asked, a frisson of fear running through her at the thought that she was talking about the Devil in a very real context and not just as part of Lucifer’s persona. Lucifer was funny and harmless if a bit weird. The Devil on the other hand, the _real_ Devil. That was something she wasn’t prepared to deal with, let alone face. Who was she to face the Devil? 

“Him Below just might. Many human souls draw his attention I am told. I have never been in his presence so I cannot tell you anything more.”

Ella kicked a rock as they started walking. “I’m still not over how stupid this is. Oh here, Ella, off you pop to Hell! Make sure you blog about it afterwards, the world needs to hear about all the damnation and torture. Oh, and no map or directions for you. I did not sign up for The Amazing Race: Hell Edition.”

They walked in silence for what felt like ages. Even her boisterous little scrub jay was subdued. He perched on her shoulder and hunkered down against her neck, little body puffed up and one foot tucked up. Ella looked at her feet and ignored the vibrating doors. 

She felt sick to her stomach and couldn’t decide if she was going to throw up or not. So she put one foot in front of the other and continued on.

The demon’s excited hoot wasn’t enough to rouse her from her sadness, but his taloned hand on her arm was. She blinked, coming back to herself. 

The canyons of rooms were behind them and ahead was an alcove. A stone gate rose out of the sandy ground and was bedecked with all kinds of disgusting talismans: a jar of eyes was sitting on a jutting rock; bones tied together with what looked like dried sinew were piled up to the side. It was one of the most macabre sights Ella had ever seen, and as a forensic scientist that was saying something. 

The demon bounced on his toes. His taloned feet made clicking noises against the stone ground as he dragged her forward. 

“This is the gate to the Third Circle.”

Ella looked behind her at the looming monolith of the canyons, at the red sky and the dark rolling clouds and just wanted, beyond anything else, to go home. 

She followed the demon through the gate.


	5. So we passed onward o'er the filthy mixture

Ella hadn’t noticed when she’d entered Hell, or even when she’d previously gone from one circle to the next. But walking through a gate from the Second Circle to the Third was a whole different beast.

It felt like falling. She flipped over and tumbled, end over end. Her intestines made a mad dash for freedom and tied themselves in knots as they flapped in the breeze. 

Falling. 

Falling. 

Falling. 

Her vision blacked out, and she caught herself just as her cheek came into contact with hard stone. 

Percy chirped when she finally looked up. He was so close to her face it looked like there were two of him.

The demon squatted next to her. A yellow scaled knee poked out of a hole in his pants. It was a strange detail to notice, but one she couldn’t stop focusing on as she tried to regain her equilibrium. 

“There, there,” he said awkwardly, and long taloned hands patted her back twice. 

“Are you trying to… console me?” Ella asked around a wheeze. It was taking a bit for the strangeness of it to pass. A demon in Hell was trying to make her feel better. “And if you are, we need to work on your consoling skills, buddy.”

“Is this not how humans help each other?” The demon clacked his beak. “I saw it in a Hell loop once.”

Ella shook off the demon’s talons and wobbled to her feet. She grabbed him up in a big bear hug while Percy tugged at her shoelaces. 

The demon stiffened under her grasp, but Ella held on until she felt his arms tentatively wrap around her. His talons rested lightly on her back as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. His head swayed on his neck a foot above her own. 

She pulled back and gave him one last squeeze. “Thanks, I needed that.” 

The demon bobbed his head nervously. 

Ella looked around. They were standing on a stone platform in a little rock alcove. The sky was dark and shot through with sickly yellow streaks. Clouds billowed, and rain spattered against the muddy rocks. The gate behind them was just as bedecked as the one they’d come through. A motley assortment of rocks, what looked like a jar full of fingers, and a plate full of eyes. 

She grimaced. 

The demon bobbed his head and stepped off the stone platform. 

Ella followed and gagged as soon as she stepped into the mud. Cold air hit like a slap to the face. The air was thick and made her think that she was breathing soup that had gone bad. She coughed and felt her gorge rise.

She tried to clear her throat and wheezed. “What the hell?” 

Big yellow eyes blinked back at her. “Yes, it is Hell,” the demon said, as if he were talking to a small child.

“I know, but it smells awful.” 

“I have no sense of smell.”

“Lucky you! Can we, I don’t know, just keep going down using this gate?” Ella gestured to the stone gate behind her and inched back into the stone circle hoping that the smell of rotten eggs would alleviate by just a little bit. “Let’s express-elevator it down and call it a day.”

“This is the gate from the Second Circle to the Third. The gate to the Fourth Circle is some distance away.”

“Why? Who came up with such a convoluted, stupid design?”

“It is Hell,” the demon replied snidely, as if she were a small child who couldn’t seem to grasp a simple concept. He opened his taloned hands, palms up. Ella was half convinced he was going to start shaking a finger at her, or maybe throw a shoe at her. If he had one. “There’s always some beast or uprising. The dukes and archdukes can shut the gates down and many a horde have been trapped and cut off.” 

Ella took a deep breath, coughed, and pulled her shirt up above her nose. 

The demon rolled his yellow eyes, clacked his beak once, and said, “The only way out is through. There are no shortcuts.” He tilted his head. “Unless you are Him Below or have been given a talisman for fast travel. If you have one of those, the paths become shorter and easier. Or so I have heard. Such a talisman would never be wasted on one such as me.” 

“Wish I had one of those right now,” Ella mumbled from under her t-shirt. 

She yelped as the rain hit her exposed skin and sizzled. Percy, who had been hopping along behind her, made a mournful sound and fluttered up to her shoulder, only to crawl down her hoodie. “Some help you are,” Ella muttered under her breath. 

The gate was set on the top of a hill, tucked in amongst the only freestanding rocks in the area. The landscape that spread out before her was completely alien: mud and mounds as far as the eye could see. The acid yellow sky was shot through with dark, foreboding clouds that gave the impression that a storm was on the horizon, and if they didn’t take shelter soon, they’d be battered by it. 

Ella shivered. “It’s like an evil version of Hobbiton.”

Large, yellow eyes glanced her way. 

She waved a hand at the mounds. “It’s a book and a movie. Hobbits have to take the ring to Mount Doom…” Ella trailed off at the demon’s uncomprehending look. 

Percy chirped from inside her hoodie. 

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a human story that we made up.” 

The demon immediately perked up. “You will have to tell me about this Hobbiton then.” 

They set off down the hill, Ella doing her best to recount _Lord of the Rings_. She’d read the books more than she was willing to admit and could practically recite the movies from memory, but being put on the spot and having to explain Middle Earth to a demon… not something she’d ever prepped for. She could suck it up, though; in true geek fashion, she was prepared to make up for her lack of storytelling skills in sheer enthusiasm.

The sleet kept up as they squelched around a series of what Ella was starting to think of as barrows. Multiple doors were set into each one. It was an appropriate fit as far as she was concerned. There may not be grave goods buried deep in the mounds, but the tortured souls of the dead would have been an archaeologist's wet dream. 

Her _Lord of the Rings_ primer trailed off as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Even her demon buddy was looking flattened, albeit unconcerned, by all the rain. His feathers were soaking wet and plastered to his bird-like skull. She was trying not to stare, but his wet bird head sticking out of a jacket was an image she wasn’t going to get over for some time. 

He walked ahead of her like taking a stroll through acid rain was a pleasant day. For all she knew, this was Hell’s version of an enjoyable afternoon.

She hunched her shoulders, pulled the hood up over her head so only her eyes were visible, sighed, and slogged on. Percy shifted under her hoodie and chirped his displeasure.

Ella’s biggest impression was mud and rain. Her shoes squelched, her jeans were wet and muddy up to the knees, and she yearned for the comfort of her tiny apartment. She’d give anything to be curled up on the couch with an old afghan watching something trashy and vapid.

“Hey, bud,” Ella said, trying to fill the silence that had descended over the two. “You said that the Devil doesn’t need to travel by going through Hell. What does that mean?”

“He is an angel.”

“Right,” Ella coughed and cleared her throat, adjusting her t-shirt over her face. “So my knowledge of angels is pretty sketch. I’ve read the Bible—well, not the whole thing. I tried but got as far as Leviticus and then just noped out. And most of what I know is either smiting or great tidings of joy. But it’s not like the Bible includes a list of angel abilities and stats.”

The demon clucked. “Angels are not bound to any one plane of existence. Our King can come and go as he will.” The rain intensified. Ella threw an arm over her forehead to block the stinging rain from getting into her eyes. 

“So, what’s the official story on how Lucifer, _the angel_ , became your King?”

The demon chirped and thrummed, slowing down so he was slogging through the mud beside Ella. “In the beginning…” he started, “the circles of Hell had no form. They were a flat, endless plane upon which Him Above would discard creations that did not fit his design.”

“What, really?” Ella said. “Is this like Genesis for demons?”

The demon continued on in a sing-song tone of voice that indicated this was something he had been told or heard many times. 

“Hell was not formed until Him Above cast out the Angel Lucifer. Our king fell through the planes of existence, bound and burnt. His impact upon the firmament of Hell resonated through the Nine Circles, and the realms burned. For eons there were only flames. It was an age before the fires subsided. From the flames, the Devil emerged. Burned but uncowed.”

“Dude, that’s metal,” Ella whispered.

“His destruction was our creation, for the first demons crawled out after him. Birthed from the flames and the first creatures that burned with our King. So when you ask why Our King needs no such talisman, Hell answers the King’s call.”

The path wound its way around a stinking, putrid hill, and Ella wrinkled her nose. A door was set into the muck; delicate roses decorated the hinges and light shone from a dirty window. She looked away. 

“Does the Devil venture out? Would you ever see him slumming it around here or something? Because I have, _had_ , a friend in Los Angeles who told everyone he was the Devil. Never broke character, that guy. I’m having a hard time envisioning Lucifer hanging out in this place. He’d be complaining about getting mud on his Armani or something.”

The demon made a garbled sound in the back of his throat and clacked his beak four times in succession. “You know Him Below?” he shrieked at her. 

Ella slipped in the mud and went down on one knee, her hand firmly planted in the muck as she pushed herself back up. “Dude, no. I know a guy who likes to pretend he’s the Devil. He isn’t actually the Devil. I mean, what would the Devil be doing as a consultant for the LAPD?”

The demon narrowed his eyes and looked unconvinced. “I do not question the whims of Him Below. He does as he will." 

“And you’ve never seen him?”

The demon shook his head. “I have seen his likeness and heard tell of him. He resides in the Ninth Circle, and I will only return to that Circle when it’s time to consign myself to the flames of my creation.”

“I have no idea what that means. But it kinda sounds like the demonic version of the birds and the bees?”

The demon bobbed his head, a disconcerting move that pinged all of the senses Ella had that screamed ‘uncanny valley.’

“You are the one with the bird. I have yet to see bees.” The demon perked up. “I do know of one Hell loop. It’s excellent. The soul is plagued by bees. They come out of every orifice. My flame mates and I used to go in and watch.” 

Ella blinked. “Well. That’s a mental image, but I meant more like, where did little baby you come from? Do you have parents?”

The demon squawked and ruffled his feathers in offense. “I am not Lilim!”

“I, um, didn’t mean to imply that you were?” Ella shrugged. She was way out of her depth with this conversation. It wasn’t like she’d studied demonology or knew a bunch about angels, and she kept inadvertently offending her demon buddy with her lack of knowledge. “So what’s a Lilim? And does that mean you don’t have parents? How are demons made?” 

Thunder rumbled overhead. The demon pulled his head into his coat so the lapels were brushing his feathery cheeks. He was soaked. As was Ella. But they kept walking, one foot in front of the other, through the mud. 

The demon gargled in the back of his throat and blinked at Ella. “The first demons crawled out of the flames. They were created in the inferno when Him Below burned. They, and their descendants, are called Shedim. We have no parents. We are created when a demon gives itself to the flames so more can come after. A sacrifice to Him Below. I crawled from the flames along with my brethren and pledged my fealty and service to my King. When the time comes, I will go back to the flames and the cycle will begin again.” 

Ella gaped. “Dude. You are _literally_ Hell spawn. That’s disturbing and awesome. Really cuts down on the amount of weird questions I was going to ask about raising demon babies in Hell.”

“Shedim are fully formed when they crawl out of the flames. Only the Lilim are children.” 

Ella blinked. “And the Lilim are?”

“The children of Lilith,” her demon buddy replied. “Adam’s first wife, cast down to Hell by Him Above for her transgressions. She lays with all kinds of creatures, and her children are the Lilim.” The demon leaned close as if he was going to impart some great secret. “One of my flame mates told me she lay with a _dragon_.” 

“Woah.” Ella shook her head. “That’s some serious office gossip, my dude. You’re putting the precinct to shame, and that place was a hotbed of who was sleeping with who and who did what. A dragon,” she mused. “How would that even work? Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I mean, I do, but I shouldn’t because I think I’m not going to like it. Dragons are big, right?”

The demon nodded. 

“Yup. Let's do a hard pass on that one.” 

Thunder rumbled. The rain sheeted down even harder, and Ella yelped as it turned into hail. She ducked into the nearest doorway, set into a muddy mound. Percy scrambled out of her hoodie and threw himself under her chin as she tried to take shelter against the vibrating door.

A golf ball sized piece of hail hit the door next to her head. Ella watched with wide eyes as it thumped down next to her feet. “Screw this,” she muttered, and reached for the door handle. 

She stumbled into the Hell loop and gaped at what she found. Acid rain and hail pelted at her back while before her was wealth unlike any she’d ever seen, and she’d been friends with Lucifer Morningstar, who threw his money around like confetti. 

This brought new meaning to the word opulent. Marble floors covered in plush, handwoven rugs. Elaborate wood paneled walls, carved with the utmost care. High ceilings arched overhead while sunlight streamed through tall windows. Vases full of roses littered the tables, and the smell was cloying and sickly sweet.

She stepped through the doorway, Percy still tucked under her chin. The furniture looked inviting. A velvet couch with elaborately embroidered pillows was calling her name. It was angled so it was facing a window, a slight breeze shifting the heavy curtains. She glanced around, fully aware that this was Hell and someone was suffering in this room, but when nothing jumped out, she decided to risk it, making a beeline for the couch. 

The demon followed after, ruffling wet feathers and brushing mud off his shabby jacket. 

Ella threw herself down on the couch and yelped. It was hard as a rock, and the velvet was scratchy under her palms. Percy squawked and fluttered over to a heavy bronze statue parked in the corner. He perched on the statue's head, fluffed out his wet feathers, and fussed over them. 

The demon craned his long neck towards the doorway. 

A maid hustled into the room, feather duster in hand. She was a portly woman with a severe face. Her dress was long and black and sported a white apron. She settled in an armchair and pulled her long dress up so it was above her knees, toed off her shoes, and rolled down her stockings. Her feet were gnarled from years of hard work and shoes that didn’t fit well. 

“Mr. Berwind!” the maid cried. “I require your assistance.” 

A man stumbled into the room. His fine clothes looked like they were straight out of the movie _Titanic_. But rather than being neat and well taken care of, they were covered in what looked like soot or coal. His face was caked in it. He had a bushy mustache, but was otherwise clean shaven, and had neat, slicked back hair. He walked across the marble floors, leaving a film of ash behind him. 

The maid tsked. “Mr. Berwind, that just won’t do. Clean it up.”

He glanced down at the soot, sniffed and rifled around in his pockets, pulling out a handkerchief. He crouched down. 

“No, no, Mr. Berwind. Not like that.” The maid smiled grotesquely. “With your tongue.” 

Mr. Berwind swallowed but complied. He placed his palms on the marble floor, bent over, and started licking up the soot. 

The maid chortled to herself and wriggled, looking pleased and comfortable on the expensive sofa. 

“Well. _That’s_ a thing that’s happening,” Ella said. 

The demon ducked his head. 

Ella shoved her wet hoodie back and attempted to take her ponytail down. Between the environment and her bird buddy, her hair was a wreck. 

“So, you, my friend, are one of the Shedim, and are basically a Hell salmon who was spawned in fire.” Her demon friend nodded. “And the other type of demon tooling around Hell are the Lilim, and they all have the same mom who isn’t picky about her partners.” 

“Correct.” 

“Did she bang the Devil?” Ella asked, thinking of Lucifer and his tendency to sleep with anyone and everyone. “Are there little demon antichrists running around?” She really needed to take notes. Someday she was going to track Lucifer down, and he would want to know about her journey through Hell. Maybe she could pitch it to him as a dream she had. It would be a great addition to his character building. Although he really didn’t care for kids. He’d be so put out if he found out the Devil was a dad. 

The look directed her way was one of deep offense. 

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Him Below is above such carnal pleasures,” the demon said prissily, fluffing up his facial disk as if she’d insulted his nonexistent mother. 

“Aw. That’s gonna be a below-the-belt punch to that friend of mine who thinks he’s the Devil. If I ever see him again that is. He’s got this whole persona built up, and he sleeps with everybody. He once offered to sleep with me while we were both working, at a crime scene of all places. And he gets away with it. Totally wild. He’ll be so bummed.” 

The man in the corner stopped licking and sobbed. 

“Mr Berwind!” the maid called. “My poor feet require your attention. They ache so terribly.” 

Mr. Berwind crawled towards the maid, soot trailing behind him across the expensive carpet. He settled at the maid’s feet and took her gnarled foot in hand. He rubbed at her arches, sobbing, as the maid moaned in delight. 

Ella tilted her head. “I know guys who would pay to do that.” 

The demon shrugged. 

“This Hell loop isn’t even that bad,” Ella pointed out. “It’s nowhere close to castrating your lover.”

“It is not your loop.” 

“Oh, good point. I don’t even know what my Hell loop would be.” 

“May you never find out.” 

Ella settled back against the hard sofa and looked around the room. She drummed her fingers on her belly. “Hey, bud, can I ask you something?” 

The demon climbed on top of a chair across from her. He crouched into a squat, pulled one leg up and crossed it over the other knee. Ella raised her eyebrows at the insane balancing act he was pulling off. She shook her head. 

“You may ask,” the demon said. 

“When we first met—well, you wouldn’t give me your name because you thought I would summon you. And I think I kinda blew you off.” 

“That is not a question.” 

“No. But I’m getting to it. First. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I was overwhelmed and kinda plowed through your concerns. It’s a bad habit. I get excited and blow things off that are important to people. I’m trying to be more aware—well, I was before I somehow ended up in Hell and have been in a state of freaking out since I got here. But, I’m getting off track so what I wanted to ask was—what did you mean by it?”

The demon tilted his head.

Ella grimaced. “What did you mean when you said you were afraid that I would summon you if you gave me your name?”

The demon’s facial disk ruffled. “There are stories told, amongst flame mates once they crawl from the fire, imparted to us by our elders. Of Him Below and the creation, and about our place in Hell. Some of these stories are about living humans and Earth.” The demon clacked his beak. 

“Please, no more. I’m begging you,” Mr Berwind said.

“Mr. Berwind. You really must know your place,” the maid replied. She gestured at the settee. Mr Berwind pressed his face into its cushion, his rear in the air and his pants around his ankles. The maid fingered her feather duster and brought the long handle down on Mr Berwind’s exposed bottom. He cried out and clutched at the pillows. 

“There’s a dude who needs a desperate introduction to kink,” Ella mused. People paid for this stuff in LA all the time and this guy was being tortured by it. She shrugged; definitely a case of your kink isn’t my kink. “Anyways. What kind of stories do demons tell about living humans?”

“Long ago,” the demon said, “living humans mastered the rituals needed to summon demons from Hell, but to do so, they needed a demon’s name. And once summoned, those demons were slaves to the will of the humans who had summoned them. They were made to do things, to give up information about themselves and Hell, and to help the humans in whatever task they were given.” 

“Dude,” Ella breathed. 

The demon’s neck extended so his face was close to Ella’s. “These humans even tried summoning _Him Below_ so they could bind our king to their will.” He whispered it, like it was some great secret. 

“How’d that go for them?”

“Poorly. They did not bind him, but the summonings stopped afterwards. No more demons were called from Hell. Although I have heard that the Lilim began possessing humans instead.” 

Ella grimaced. “Oh, possessions are a thing now too. That’s cool. Very cool. So cool. It’s not like I wasn’t worrying about all kinds of things before this. I’ll just add possession to the existential dread pile. Kinda like worrying that an air conditioner will fall on me.”

“You would need to be dead. They cannot find your body otherwise.” 

“Okay, that’s morbidly reassuring.” 

“And it’s forbidden. Long ago. Him Below commanded it.” 

“Praise Satan!” Ella held her hand up for a high five. The demon glared at it. She laughed and grabbed a hard throw pillow instead. “So, even if I wanted to summon you and I knew your name, I’d still need to know a ritual to do it, which I don’t know because that’s not a thing on Earth anymore.” 

“Truly?” 

“Yeah, dude. No rituals. No demon summoning. Not anymore. I guess the Devil made sure it didn’t happen when someone tried summoning him. A lot of people don’t even believe in demons now.” 

The demon burbled and fluffed his feathers happily. He crossed his arms, and it almost looked like he was giving himself a hug. 

“So, since I can’t summon you and we’re kinda on this journey together, is there something I can call you?”

The demon’s yellow eyes shifted to watch Mr. Berwind and his very red bottom. 

“You okay?”

“I have no name,” the demon admitted. “I have not found one.” 

“Woah. Seriously? What do your friends, um, flame mates call you?”

“We are given designations when we crawl from the flames. But a name is something one picks for themselves.” 

“Are there any you’ve been trying out?” 

The demon’s eyes wouldn’t meet her own. Ella bounced forward on the couch. “There are, aren’t there?! You’ve got some in mind?”

“There is one,” the demon admitted slowly. 

“Will you tell me? I don’t want to pry. If it’s private, that’s totally your business. I won’t push. But I’d love to have something to call you. That you want to be called.” 

“Strix,” the demon said. “I want to be called Strix.” 

She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Strix.” 

Strix took her hand in his, talons gentle against her skin. She tightened her fingers and smiled.

* * *

Lucifer tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Around him, his archdukes argued and raged. 

The black basalt walls of the council room felt particularly stifling. It was a large room, hollowed out eons ago by the fires of his fall and covered in carvings. Tiny carved demonic figures gamboled up and down the basalt columns. The massive table itself was one block that had been skillfully chiseled from rock.

The meeting had been going for some time and wasn’t looking to wind up anytime soon. And all of it could have been in an email. If such a thing existed in Hell. 

He yearned for the King’s Seat, high above all the bickering. 

Even better, paperwork. He’d do all the precinct paperwork if it meant no longer sitting through his archdukes sniping at each other. 

He sighed. It was better for them to yell at each other in front of him rather than whisper and backstab where he couldn’t see them. 

They would still do that, of course, but it would be a tad less vicious. 

He drifted for a moment on the thought of honey blonde hair and big blue eyes. Big blue eyes rolling at him for doing something ridiculous. He kept those images tucked close and pulled them up when Hell became too oppressive, too awful, too…demonic. 

Ever since coming back, his time had been eaten away by his unruly subjects. First was finding and putting down Dromos and his little rebellion. Dromos had made for an object lesson in why it wasn’t a good idea to disobey the king’s edicts. Squee had followed. The rest of the Lilim he’d left to stew, except for that little cadre that had tried to make a last stand in the Fifth Circle. Lilith was by no means a caring mother, but she could be a thorn in his side when she chose. Making an example of one offspring, his demonic hanger-on, and a few zealots wouldn’t be a problem. Offing the rest would be a step too far.

So many problems. 

A large portion of whom were sitting in this room.

The Archdukes of Hell scowled and sniped and snarled at each other, and it was more of the same. Nothing ever got done. Oh, things changed. Who was in and who was out was constantly evolving, all of them scrabbling to be close to the king and wield some modicum of power. They hadn’t quite figured out that their king didn’t care as long as they left the human world alone. 

One sniveling little demon that looked as if a man had been stomped on by a phlegmatic elephant stood on his chair and shook a long, broken finger at his compatriot across the table. 

“It’s your fault the legion is in disarray,” Drachos shrieked. “The fortress on the Isle of Foeter is in ruins because of your mismanagement.” A flush crept up his pale, wrinkled skin, and was particularly noticeable as he refused to wear anything more than a loincloth. 

“And who was it that was supposed to send adequate supplies to assist in the construction? I believe it was you, Drachos, so keep your accusations to yourself before I feast on your fingers,” Spelenx responded, all three mouths smiling at the same time, sharpened teeth glistening in the dim light. He patted his enormous, distended belly. “I hunger for something crunchy to chew.” 

“Why are you wasting your king’s time with this?” Ver interjected. She gestured dismissively at the arguing demons. She was tall and pale, bone white skin, long white hair and filmy white eyes. She was disconcertingly skinny, and her mouth was uncomfortably wide, which she used to great effect as she bared her teeth at Spelenx. 

Spelenx hissed through his many mouths. 

“Yes,” Lucifer said. “Why are you hashing this out here? Not to say I’m disinterested in the nuts and bolts of Hell and its _management_ issues, but you were chosen for your positions due to your ability to oversee your circles, your legions, and the souls housed within with some modicum of capability. And now I’m hearing that’s not the case.”

Spelenx’s uppermost mouth opened as if he wanted to retort, but he withered under Lucifer’s glare. His three mouths pressed into flat lines. Clearly unhappy. Drachos wheezed and frowned. 

Lucifer sighed.

Ver frowned until Drachos and Spelenx sank back into their seats. She was effective, Lucifer had to give her that. Normally Belial ran the council meetings. Belial, as his general, didn’t oversee the running of any one circle. It made him an effective third party to keep Lucifer’s scheming archdukes in line. In Belial’s absence, Ver, the archduke of the Sixth Circle, had stepped into the fray and brought the council in line before red had started swirling in Lucifer’s eyes. 

As much as Lucifer enjoyed disappearing into the Hell loops and losing himself in fleeting moments of humanity, he couldn’t do it forever, as much as he wanted to. Not if he wanted to ensure the safety of his humans. 

He was king. He was responsible for groveling, obsequious demons ready to fight at a moments notice. It made him wish for the well-oiled machine that was the LAPD. 

How Chloe would laugh if she knew. 

What he would give to get out of this wretched meeting and not have to see any members of his council ever again. He’d do all the paperwork in the world if it meant another moment in the Detective’s presence. 

A loud voice rang through the chamber. “So this is where you’re hiding.”

The arguing stopped. All eyes turned towards the doorway. Lilith lounged against the basalt columns; a gauzy red dress barely clung to her body. 

Lucifer tipped his chair back and kicked up his heels on the stone table. “It’s nice to see you too, Lilith. I wasn’t aware I was hiding.” 

Lilith swayed into the room, one hand on her enormous pregnant belly. “It’s been some time since I’ve been in the presence of our most gracious king.” Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I wonder what delights you’ve found in the Hell loops that keep you away from your court.”

“Oh, just the regular torture and torment." 

Lilith tossed her dark hair over one shoulder. Firelight reflected off the small red jewels plated into her hair. She was a tall woman with an hourglass figure. Dark hair, dark eyes, copper skin. Her red dress floated around her pregnant body; it was a barely-there shimmer of material that left nothing to the imagination. She was alluring, and even Hell hadn’t been able to detract from her beauty. 

A beauty Lucifer was not interested in now, or ever.

Her eyes darted around the room, eyeing each one of her children. 

“Belial isn’t here,” Lucifer said. 

She played with a lock of her hair, sliding it between her fingers. “He’s been neglecting me horribly. You know how I get when I am so close to my time.” Lilith’s dark eyes narrowed. “I’ve had to see to my own needs.” 

The council shifted in their seats nervously.

"As much as Belial loves being your walking dildo, I’m certain he’s got better things to do if he’s skipping a meeting of the archdukes." 

Lilith circled the table. At this point the bulk of his archdukes were her children. They hunched in their seats as she touched their heads. When she arrived at Lucifer’s seat at the head of the table, she ran her fingers along the neckline of his tunic, and then lower, down his chest and towards the waistline of his trousers. She leaned in close and whispered into his ear, “I live to serve, My King.”

Lucifer tilted his head away. “I would rather not be served right now, thank you.” 

Lilith pressed her lips together and crossed her arms under her breasts. “You leave so much and no one knows where you go. Hell loop to Hell loop, and for what? What could those dead souls give you, that we, your subjects, cannot?”

Lucifer narrowed his eyes.

“And Belial is off doing the same thing. Are you sure he’s serving your interests, My King?”

“Oh, trouble in paradise? Oh, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” 

“My Lord, maybe we should adjourn,” Ver said.

The look Lilith shot her daughter was full of poison. 

“An excellent idea.” Lucifer waved a hand airily and rose. He stepped around Lilith as his Council scrambled to their feet, none wanting to sit when the king stood. Lucifer had to give them credit; their self-preservation instincts were in fine working order. “Come back with solutions. Don’t tell me about problems. Tell me about what you’re doing to fix them.”

He stepped out of the chambers, his archdukes at his heels. Lilith shrieked in frustration and stormed out behind them. 

“Timely interruption,” Lucifer muttered. He’d been looking for an out. If there was one thing Hell excelled at it, it was making meetings interminable and once his archdukes got going, they were single-minded in their focus. 

“My King. I’ll ensure a report makes its way to you regarding the resolution of the arguments between Drachos and Spelenx,” Ver said, she tapped her long white fingers against her white, ash stained dress, and her filmy white gaze drifted past him to glare at the two demons in question. 

"And do find out where Belial ran off to. It is highly unlike him to vanish like this. He’s normally quite content to see to Lilith’s _needs_.” 

Ver nodded. 

Lucifer unfurled his wings, and with a ruffle of feathers he was finally free. 

He alighted on the High Seat. The towering basalt throne was a welcome sanctuary, even if it was a harsh reminder of everything he’d given up. He tucked his wings away and slumped onto the throne. 

Belial. 

Lilith always could turn Belial’s head around. They’d been together in one form or another since Lilith had been cast into Hell. Belial had sheltered her, seen to her needs, and fathered numerous children on her. They weren’t together in the traditional sense of the word, but were probably the longest lasting relationship in Hell. 

With Lilith as gravid as she was, it wouldn’t be unexpected for Belial to be attending to her. The further into pregnancy she got, the more insatiable she became. 

Hell was vast, overwhelmingly so. Innumerable human souls tortured themselves in the maze of rooms on each of the levels. Tucking in with the Hell loops were demonic cities and forts, and beyond that was the desolation. Primitive places where little survived. 

He tilted his head and closed his eyes, spreading his awareness out and trying to focus. The black miasma of pain and suffering was ever present, thick and cloying. 

He found what he was looking for. The little star, barely a glimmer of light in its gravity well. He could feel the waves of its passing, slight now, but growing. He turned his full attention towards it and tried to figure out where it was.

* * *

Ella wanted to go back to the foot rubbing Hell loop. 

It may have been a rich dude’s version of Hell, but it was a respite from the seriously crappy weather the Third Circle enjoyed. Wind, mud, and rain. Joy of joys. 

They were back to the slog, ankle deep in mud, acid rain pitter-pattering around them as they walked around the mounds. The ceaseless mounds with their rattling doors.

“Hey, dude, I’ve been wondering. If guilt is what brings people to Hell, what happens if they don’t deserve it? And what happens to the people that have done really awful things and deserve to be here, but don’t feel any guilt about it? Like Leofric; he was convinced he was guilty because he loved someone. But that wasn’t wrong. He didn’t deserve that.” 

“It is his truth,” Strix said firmly. “The only thing that matters is his truth. Hell does not care for facts.” 

“So if someone doesn’t belong here, it doesn’t matter as long as they think they belong here?”

The demon nodded. 

“What about psychopaths or sociopaths?” the demon’s head tilted with a confused air. 

Ella huffed out a breath and tucked a strand of lank hair behind her ear with a muddy hand. “People who do terrible, awful things but have no guilt over it.”

“They know they belong here and the knowing sends them here, to us.” 

“But you don’t know for sure. You’re a demon. How do you know that most of them are here? A bunch could be chilling in heaven right now laughing about it. That would suck. You’re a good person, you die, you go to Heaven, and it’s full of sociopaths. Before this, I would have said the Big Guy has a plan, but now I’m walking through Hell like I’m the _Chosen One_ or something stupid like that, so I’m not sure the Big Guy even _has_ a plan these days.” She paused and flicked mud off her hands. “Or if He does, I’m not enjoying it.”

Percy scrabbled in her hoodie, and his tail slapped her cheek as he adjusted his position. “Seriously?” she asked the bird. 

They rounded a barrow and Ella gaped. A massive mud wall loomed up before them. It snaked around the barrows and stretched off into the distance. It was rounded, almost like a tube that had been covered in mud. Twenty feet high and with a steep slope. Ella couldn’t see a way around it. 

Strix didn’t even hesitate. He dug his talons into the mud and climbed up the mound. Ella groaned, looked down at her muddy hands, and followed. Her fingers had been freezing ever since they’d stepped out of the Hell loop, and sticking them into the cold mud as she climbed wasn’t helping. Her hands were starting to feel numb, and she vaguely wondered what would happen if she got frostbite in Hell. 

Would she get home and just have nubs for fingers?

Mud splattered on her face as she climbed. She tried to wipe her face on her shoulder and only managed to upset Percy, who churred unhappily from her hoodie. She felt like the hunchback of Notre Dame, except her hunch had opinions. 

She found Strix standing at the top of the wall, looking down at the other side and the endless barrows that stretched out in front of them. 

“Phew. That was a haul,” Ella said, attempting to break the silence. 

The ground beneath her moved.

Ella yelped. 

Strix shrieked and threw himself down the hill. He tumbled end over end until he skidded to a stop at the bottom. He floundered in the mud before pulling himself partially upright and running away as fast as he could. Ella could see the wet feathers plastered against his head, not from rain, but from fear. 

She gulped. 

The ground moved in a sinuous motion that vaguely reminded Ella of one of the earthquakes she’d ridden out in Los Angeles. Her feet flew out from under her, and she landed on her back. Percy squawked and scrambled out of her hoodie. The flutter of fiercely beating wings and angry chirping receding into the distance were all Ella heard before she slid down the side of the moving hill. She had a moment of panic before she rolled face first into the mud. 

She pushed herself up and scraped at the mud coating her face, blinking frantically and trying to get her vision to adjust. The forensic scientist part of her brain surfaced for a brief moment to note that the mud tasted like ash and sulfur. 

The mound rumbled.

She tried to move, but only managed to belly flop her way through the mud as she tried to get her legs under her. 

A high-pitched shriek shot through the air before tapering off into a low rumble. Ella glanced over her shoulder and wished she hadn’t. The mound wasn’t ash and mud; it was a creature. A giant, eyeless worm opened its enormous mouth and repeated the shriek-rumble. Its teeth looked like giant pegs, and from the angle Ella was at she could see that its teeth went all the way down its throat. The creature rumbled, and tremors ran through its body as it propelled itself forward. The ground made a sickening squelch with every movement of its worm-like body. 

Percy dive-bombed her head, and the little bird’s screeches and squawks were enough to shake Ella out of her mesmerized stupor. 

She flounder her way upright and ran. She ran until she was out of breath and there was a stitch in her side she couldn’t ignore. 

Strix was nowhere to be seen.


	6. Each one shall find again his dismal tomb

Ella slumped against the door of a Hell loop. The barrow the door was situated in rose up behind her, a dark mass of mud and misery. Dim light filtered through the ash and muck from the window above her head. 

The rain had turned to sleet while she’d been fleeing the Dune-esque mud worms. She’d taken refuge amongst the barrows, tucked away in a forgotten doorway. She could have ventured into one of the Hell loops and braved whatever torment the damned soul was experiencing in order to get out of the sleet, but she didn’t know where Strix was and didn’t want to miss him if he was looking for her. She’d do it if she had to, but she’d rather not. 

In the distance, something howled. 

Ella straightened. Percy shifted position against the back of her neck and churred. His tiny claws scrabbled at the back of her neck as he shifted position.

The long drawn out howl echoed through the barrows. The hair on Ella’s arms stood up, and a frisson of fear shot down her spine. The primal part of her brain that remembered what it was like to be prey was a gibbering mess in the back of her head. 

She pushed herself to her feet, wobbling in the muck before steadying herself on the vibrating door frame. Her feet were numb from the cold, but she tottered forward as best she could, creeping around the barrow and away from whatever was making that sound.

The distant howl cut off. Something growled. Something close. 

Ella’s breath stuttered in her throat. She pressed her back against the muddy barrow. 

The distant sound of talking filtered in once her brain had calmed enough to focus. The language was deep and harsh. It made her throat ache just to hear it. It vaguely reminded her of Klingon, if Klingon had been put through a meat grinder. 

The squelch of mud. A low growl. Snuffling sounds. 

Ella scootched around the barrow, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The sounds were close. Close enough that she knew they were on the other side of her little barrow hideout. 

There was a yip of excitement, followed by angry shouting, the smack of a hand hitting something and a pained yelp.

The mud of the barrow gave way to the wood of a door beneath her fingertips. She fumbled for the doorknob and eased it open as quietly as she could. She slipped through and shut the door behind her, hoping that whatever had been so close by hadn’t heard a sound. 

* * *

Lucifer roused on the throne. 

The clouds above him swirled, and the labyrinth of rooms was still. Should a door open, a distant scream or begging might be heard in the distance, but for the moment all was quiet. The air was oppressive, almost humid, and it made him want to sink back into the removed state he’d been in. 

He tugged at the cuffs of his tunic and slid a hand over the rough dragon scale of his trousers. What he would give for a Prada or Tom Ford suit, but his tailor absolutely refused to indulge him. 

What good was being king if one’s tailor wouldn’t even listen?

He was irritated. Belial’s disappearance. Lilith. The bloody Council. 

He spread his wings, white feathers glinting in the ash like a beacon, and launched himself off the throne. Two powerful downbeats, and he was high above the maze of rooms. Angels were creatures of distance. It was built into their very essence, in their language, their vision, their love of heights and open spaces. As much as Lucifer denied that part of himself, he still fell back on it when needed. When he couldn’t see clearly, when the solution wasn’t obvious, he ran away. 

Or in this case, flew. 

He spiraled higher on a hot gust of ash, wings fully extended as he looked down on the Ninth Circle. He tilted his head, focusing on the corridors beneath him. 

Distant movement. Two demons, tucked into a dark corner between Hell loops. Ver, pallid and still, glared daggers at her companion. Her arms were crossed and Lucifer knew from experience that her foot was tapping in irritation. Her companion, Skhistos, by the looks of it, was waving his arms, whatever he was saying lost to the wind and the heat and the ash as Lucifer circled high above. 

He grinned, tucked his wings tight, and dove. Wind whipped through his hair, and his feathers were pressed flat with the speed of his dive. He pulled out at the last moment and swung his lower legs forward. 

He landed with a thump. 

The demons jumped.

Lucifer’s wings arched dangerously over his head, the bladed feathers sharp and angled for the demons to see. As he brought them down, the foremost flight feather of his right wing cut a sharp line into the basalt floor. 

He was a benevolent king—when it suited him. He was happy to delegate out much of the day to day running of Hell, uninterested in the finer details. He’d brought the same management style to Lux when he’d lived on Earth. Find capable people and treat them well. It allowed him the leeway to do as he pleased and ensure everything was running as it should. Demons and employees. He saw very little difference. 

He missed his Maze. She had a talent for keeping both in line. 

Not so much Lilith. Bloody Lilith who lived for gossip and intrigue. 

He eyed his council members and with a roll of his shoulders furled his wings. 

“My Lord!” Skhistos said. He hailed from the Fourth Circle and looked like he’d been cut from the granite rocks that were the overwhelming feature of the place. Tall and striking, with a harsh beauty about him. He wrung thick hands together and blurted out, “Belial has gone to Tura Fortress.” 

Lucifer tilted his head. “I wouldn’t expect him to run to Malphas when Lilith is so eager for his company.” 

“There is more,” Ver said. 

“Have you brought me gossip?” Lucifer replied, delighted. “Do tell.”

Ver tilted her head up, meeting his eyes. “There have been rumors of unrest for some time. There’s word that Malphas’ hold on the Fourth Circle is slipping. Belial left to gather intel." 

Lucifer arched an eyebrow. “Belial’s version of gathering intel with Malphas is gambling and drinks. Are you sure this isn’t Belial’s excuse to give your mother the slip, Ver?” She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her dirty white gown and narrowed her eyes. “If Malphas is losing his grip, shouldn’t this have been brought to my attention earlier, maybe in—possibly, a Council meeting?”

Ver and Skhistos shared a look. “We only just found out about it recently, My King,” Skhistos replied. 

“Yes. We did not want to bring it to your attention if it was not warranted,” Ver said. Her gaze was steely. “It took many discrete inquiries to obtain this information. Belial let no one know that he had left the palace or where he was headed.”

“You’re quite well informed, Ver.” 

Skhistos grimaced. 

Lucifer smirked down at them. He had no doubt that Skhistos was only here because the Fourth Circle was his domain. As its Archduke, he represented its interests to the King, and Lucifer was sure that messages had fluttered their way out of the fortress as soon as Belial arrived.

He could leave this to Belial—the old demon did enjoy his games—but Lucifer was on edge, almost annoyed. Hell scraped at him, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. 

He unfurled his wings and had a small moment of satisfaction as his councillors flinched. “Try not to get into trouble. I don’t want to return and find that you’ve inadvertently set yourself on fire.” A ruffle of feathers, and Lucifer launched himself through the circles of Hell to Tura Fortress. Skhistos whimper of “that was only once!” lost to the wind.

* * *

Ella leaned against the wooden door and gaped at the mud brick walls of a small courtyard. 

She could hear cattle in the distance, and a bovine smell lingered. The unrelenting sun beat down, and flies buzzed over a large rug laden with plates of food. 

A middle aged man, nut brown with dark curly hair, took pride of place. He was stuffing his face with as much food as he could get his hands on. He bit into crunchy fish, scooped up meat covered in rich sauces, gorged on fruit. 

And all around the rug, sat starving, famished children. Their skeletal bones were delicate under paper thin skin. Their eyes large and wide and accusing. Ella could count each rib without looking too closely. 

They watched the man as he ate. 

Each bite turned to ash in his mouth. 

It took some time for Ella to realize that this wasn’t a loop that reset. This was eternity, a never-ending feast of the most abysmal kind. She pressed herself against the scorching mud bricks and squashed the impulse to leave. She didn’t know what was out there, and without Strix, she wasn’t willing to face it on her own. 

So instead she stayed, transfixed and horrified. 

Percy twittered from her neck and inched down her shoulder. He grasped the fabric of Ella’s mud covered hoodie in small feet and swung himself down so he was hanging upside down from her bicep. His head turned so little bird eyes could analyze the scene. He looked up at Ella and twittered, letting go of her hoodie and fluttering to the ground. He pecked at the door. 

Ella inhaled. “Are we good to leave?” she whispered. 

Percy tapped the door again. 

“I’m trusting you, so if you get us eaten by monsters I’m holding you personally responsible.”

She turned away from the skeletal children and eased the door open as quietly as she could. She stepped back out into the sleet and mud. Percy hopped after her, looking as forlorn as a water logged bird could manage. 

Whatever had been on the other side of the barrow was gone. As far as she could tell, she and Percy were alone again. 

“We can’t stay here, so I guess we just pick a direction and go. Any ideas?” she asked the bird. 

Percy puffed up his wet feathers and preened half-heartedly at his mud encrusted belly. 

“Some guide you are,” she grumbled. 

She set off opposite where the harsh language and terrifying howls had come from, hoping that she wouldn’t run into their owners. 

“Let’s get out of this weird _Dune_ ripoff,” she told the bird that was hopping along after her. “Fear is the mind-killer, keep that in mind, my friend.” 

Percy chirped and flew up to her shoulder. 

“ _I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me…_ ” 

She’d grown up using sci-fi and fantasy as an escape from real life. Four brothers, working parents, a small house in Detroit: she’d needed the escape. Her brothers were constantly in trouble in one way or another, and after the car accident—and everything that came with that, like the medication, the doctors, the thinking she was crazy—tv, books and movies were the calm center of her crazy storm. They let her get out of her head and forget about her own problems for a time. 

She could travel to new worlds and experience new things and not have to deal with the worried looks from her parents. She’d read Dune when she was thirteen, and that passage about fear had seen her through some hard times. 

She hadn’t been prepared for her weirdo coping mechanism to get the workout of its life as she traveled through Hell. 

In the distance, a worm shriek-rumbled. Ella adjusted her trajectory so she wasn’t heading towards it. 

A hand gripped her shoulder. 

Ella screamed. She spun on her heel and tried to angle her palm up at her attacker's nose. 

Strix grabbed her wrist before her hand could impact with his beak. His yellow eyes narrowed, and an angry clack of his beak had her relaxing in his grip. 

“Dude, you’re okay!” She bundled the startled demon into a hug, pulling him in tight and relishing the familiarity of his strange features. Percy squawked at her feet. He fluttered up to land on the top of Ella’s head so he could chirp bird questions at Strix. 

The demon carefully extricated himself from her grasp. “You have avoided the hell hounds. That is good.” 

“Hell hounds? Also a thing. That’s awesome. And terrifying. Awesomely terrifying? Are they after us?” Ella asked.

Strix dragged her behind him. They inched their way through the barrows. “They are searching for something,” he said. “I was close enough to hear their handlers. I do not believe they know we are near. They are after someone else.” 

Ella shivered. 

Strix’s wet feathers fluttered. “I am told,” he whispered, “that during the last uprising, before I crawled from the flames, Him Below used the hounds to track down Dromos and the rebellious Lilim.”

“What did they do?” she whispered around her dry throat. 

“Dromos broke the king’s edict. He tried to install another in his place.” Strix clacked his beak. “I do not know where he would even get another able to rule.”

“So if someone were eligible for the throne, besides the Devil, they’d have to be...?"

“An angel. Only an angel may rule. Dromos would have had to have found an angel he could install in the place of the king.”

“Wow. Ballsy.”

Strix bobbed his long neck. “That was many, many years ago. Centuries, even. Long before my time. The king has a long memory and all Hell obeys. The rage of Him Below is legendary.” Strix flapped his taloned hands in obvious delight. 

“Are you... buddy, are you a Devil fanboy?”

“I do not understand the term,” he replied, with a prim air about him. 

“It means you’re a Devil enthusiast. For example, when I get into a TV show, I want to know everything about it. The behind the scenes photos, little tidbits from the writers; I follow all the actors on social media, and if I see them in real life I’m a mess. I love what they do, and I get excited about it. So like that, but with the Devil.”

“That is—accurate,” Strix said haltingly. “He is our king. Without him, Hell would not be what it is. Demons would not exist without the infernal flames he set alight.” 

“If I could bring you back to Earth with me, you’d have a blast talking to my Lucifer.” She eyed his long neck and owl-like face. “Maybe after the ‘oh no, it’s a demon!’ freakout.”

Strix squawked and stumbled over his muddy feet. “I would never presume to take up my Lord’s time with one such as I-I am… I am nobody. I _couldn’t_.”

“Dude, he’s just eccentric. Trust me. He’s not the Devil. He’s a rich guy with too much money and too many issues. A bit of a squirmer when he’s hugged, but he secretly likes it. Or did. It’s been a few years. He’s just _super_ method. I’m sure a few chats with a real demon would really contribute to his character. You two could fanboy together.”

“I would never,” Strix said with an aggrieved tone to his voice. “A smart demon keeps its head down and does its work. The king is not known for his patience. Dromos of the Lilim was annihilated when the king resumed the throne. The things that were done to him for his impertinence and treachery… His corpse hung from the main gates of Dís for years. All have seen it.” 

Ella squinted at her erstwhile friend as the rain poured down. “Never meet your heroes. Totally a good idea in this case.”

A howl rose up over the sound of the rain and lingered in the air. Ella’s heart began to race. A lump in her throat prevented her from saying anything else. 

Strix grabbed her arm. His talons poked uncomfortably through her hoodie, but she was too terrified to object as he pulled her into a stumbling run through the oozing mud. 

“Too close, too close,” he mumbled back to her. “That is no youngling hell hound. We must go go go go go. The gate is not far.”

Percy launched himself from her shoulder and flew circles around their heads. He didn’t make a noise, but it was like the little bird knew that something evil lurked in the distance and that if it caught their scent, they were goners. 

Ella slipped more than once, falling into the putrid mud as she tried to keep up with Strix. Each time she did, a worried Percy would swoop down, and Strix would backtrack to help her to her feet. Her shoes were great for a day hike on a well planned out path but were quickly coming to pieces. They’d started this adventure bright blue and now were unrecognizable. At the rate she was going, Ella was sure she would be hobbling out of Hell barefoot. 

If she ever made it out of Hell. 

A long, piercing howl pursued them through the acid rain and over the muddy barrows. It was closer. Ella slithered around a barrow and tried to ignore the sensation of her skin wanting to shiver off her body at the noise. Strix hunched down next to her and clacked his beak. His feathery head whipped back and forth. Percy landed on her shoulder.

The howl cut off into excited yips, followed by a snarling growl. 

The demon’s lantern eyes found her own, his talons plucked at her hoodie. “It’s not far,” he hissed. I do not think we are the hound’s quarry, but if found they will still rend us limb from limb.”

Ella nodded and they ducked out of the cover of the barrow, running between the filthy, stinking mounds. Mud slid off a barrow just to their left. It splattered in front of them, and they floundered through it. Percy shrieked high above them and Ella looked up—directly into the red eyes of the creature standing on top of the barrow. 

The hell hound snarled with more teeth than Ella cared to pay attention to. It’s muscles bunched under disgusting mud encrusted fur as its enormous paws dug into the top of the barrow. Shaggy black fur, so twisted that it almost looked like barbed wire, framed a goblin-like face. 

It crouched lower, ready to pounce. 

Percy flew at the hound's face, screaming. 

The hell hound recoiled. It snapped its massive, bone crushing jaws at the little scrub jay. Percy didn’t let up. Just like the cougar, he attacked the bigger creature with an aerial attack that would put a fighter pilot to shame. 

Ella pushed herself upright and grabbed for Strix. They floundered forward only to screech to a stop as another hell hound barred the way, head down, lips drawn back in a snarl. Two demons stood just behind it. 

“Oh ho, what do we have here?” the demon said. Ella gaped at its horror show of a face. It had no eyes and just one big mouth that gaped open; rows and rows of teeth were visible all the way down its throat. It was human-shaped and underneath the mud and the muck, was wearing some semblance of armor. 

The second demon was all eyes. Multitudes of tiny black eyes were set into its face. It had no mouth that she could see. 

The demons were holding hands, fingers clasped together as if they were out for a romantic stroll. It was a super weird detail to fixate on when two hell hounds were less than five feet away and ready to pounce. 

The eye demon blinked at the mouth demon. 

“Yes,” the mouth demon said. “Lunch.” The demon’s mouth gaped open and a wide, lacerated tongue licked at its teeth. “These two look”—its tongue slithered out of his mouth and flicked blood and saliva their way—“delicious.”

“Oh, hey, guys,” Ella said, finally finding her voice. Although what came out was quavery and nervous. “Totally didn’t expect to see you guys down here. How’s it going? Doing Satan’s work, I see.” She laughed. “Hail Satan, am I right?”

The hell hound on the barrow yipped. Percy chittered triumphantly and in a rush of wings alighted on Ella’s shoulder, a mouthful of wiry fur held in his beak like a trophy. 

The one with the eyes blinked—all at the same time. Dozens of tiny black eyes blinking vertically and horizontally. The mouth demon giggled. “You are right. But, my belly is empty. It’s been so long since I’ve had a meal.” 

Ella laughed, fake and high pitched, not entirely sure what was going on with the two demons. “Yeah, thanks, but we’ll have to pass. I’m pretty stringy. Nothing worth gnawing on here.”

The demon that was all mouth, whistled harshly. The hell hound in front of them advanced, each giant paw leaving a dried, smoking print in the mud. Ella backed up, bumping into Strix. “Can we talk about this?”

Percy crouched on her shoulder and let out a shrill call, a warning to the hell hound. 

The enormous hound took another step forward, its head lowering and its red eyes pinned on them.

The eye demon inhaled, or that’s what Ella thought it looked like. It sniffed, and it was like the skin of its face sucked inwards, eyeballs and all. 

The mouth demon tilted its head towards its companion. “A living human!” it said, and its long, tentacle-like tongue lolled out of its mouth, blood dripping from its teeth. “Are you sure?”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure,” Ella replied. “Living human, right here.” Strix warbled nervously, his long neck was jammed into his coat and only his eyes peeking out over the collar. 

“How do we know that’s true? She could be lying. It has been an age since a meatbag walked Hell.” 

Ella backed up a step, her hands raised. The hell hound in front of her growled. “Uh. Are we having two separate conversations? I’m not sure what’s going on.”   
  
The demon’s tongue flicked back and forth over its teeth, opening up new wounds with each pass. The demon that was all eyes narrowed all of them at her. 

The mouth demon retracted his tongue and smiled. He scratched the hell hound along its back. “You’re right. She’ll be pleased to know another human is journeying. Dante was so long ago.” The mouth demon giggled. “And so useful.” 

Ella bumped her shoulder against Strix’s. Percy hopped onto the top of her head and held onto her hair with small feet. She could feel him practically vibrating, ready to throw himself into the fray and deliver some birdie retribution should he need to. She didn’t know what they were going to do or how they’d get away from the two demons plus hell hounds. If they were anything like the K9 units at the precinct, they’d be toast if they tried to run. 

Hell hound chew toy wasn’t a box Ella was looking to tick. 

The mouth demon leered, a disconcerting look when its mouth was upwards of seventy percent of its face. She wasn’t even sure where its eyes were, to be honest. “Come, little human, we’ll provide safe passage to the realms below.”

“Thanks, guys, but I’m good. I’ve got a demon escort. I’m glad she’ll be pleased, whoever she is, but we’re solid here.” She gave them two thumbs up and a big smile. She took another step backwards, drawing Strix with her. 

The demon with the eyes blinked all at one. The mouth demon commanded most of her attention, but Ella had the distinct impression the eye demon was the one to be careful around. 

The mouth demon beckoned again. “Come, little human. The way is long, and your Shedim friend can’t protect you like we can.” 

Strix’s irritated hiss was muffled by the collar of his coat. 

Ella narrowed her eyes, not liking the condescending tone the mouth demon used when he referred to Strix as Shedim. “Seriously, I’m good, guys, but thanks for the offer.” 

The eye demon moved. One moment it was behind the Hell Hound and the next it’s thick, calloused hand was wrapped around her wrist. “Hey!” Ella shouted. She tugged, but the demon’s grip was like a vice. “Let me go!” 

The demon’s long tongue lolled out of its mouth, its tongue swishing in front of it like it was searching for something. Ella recoiled, tugging at the demon’s grip as the eye demon held out its free hand so the long thick tongue of its counterpart could wrap around its wrist and guide the two demons back together. Ella was sure her face was stuck in a permanent cringe as the tongue retreated back into the enormous mouth and their fingers entwined.

“You are coming with us,” the mouth demon said. “We insist.” 

Percy hopped on the top of her head and made loud chattering noises at the demons. The hell hound on the barrow growled. Ella pulled against the hand, trying to dislodge the demon's grip. 

“She’s a personal friend of Him Below!” Strix screeched. 

The demon that was all eyes blinked, rapidly, as if it was having difficulty processing the words. 

“What did you say?” the mouth demon hissed. 

“She’s a personal friend of The King of Hell, Him Below, the Angel known as Lucifer. She has been chosen to journey, and our Lord awaits her arrival.” Strix’s head rose out of his jacket, his long neck sinuous and waving in menace. The feathers around the owl demon’s face fluffed up, making his head look positively enormous.

Ella gawked at him, shocked at the brazen lie. She looked back at the two demons who didn’t seem to know what to do with that information. “Yeaaah,” she said, drawing out the word in an attempt to channel more confidence than she felt. “He and I are buds.” 

The demon with the tongue hissed. The eye demon’s grip loosened, just a bit.

“I think you’d better let me go. Lucifer isn’t going to be too happy when he finds out about this.” She gulped and took a stab in the dark. “You know how he is.” 

The eye demon let go of her wrist as if she had burned him. 

Strix’s head waved back and forth on his long neck; he placed a taloned hand on her shoulder. “We’ll convey word of your terrible works to our Lord,” Strix said as he tugged Ella past the demons and the hell hound. “Show no weakness,” he hissed into her ear.

Ella nodded and tried not to slip. Only Strix’s strong grip on her arm prevented her from toppling face first into the mud. A long mournful howl followed them through the barrows. 

As soon as they were far enough away and sure they weren’t followed, Ella slumped against a doorway. She pressed her face against the shivering wood and gulped for air, coughing on the sulphuric miasma. 

Percy grasped her hair, leaned down, and chirped reassurances into her ear. 

“They should not have threatened you,” Strix said, stomping his booted talons. “It is forbidden to threaten a human who has been chosen, and besides, you are Lucifer’s friend.” 

Ella braced her hands on the doorframe and heaved herself back up. “Dude. We totally lied to them. My Lucifer isn’t that _Lucifer_. My Lucifer is a method actor with too much time and money. I mean, yeah, he probably has some super shady connections and a tragic backstory he won’t tell anyone about besides the whole Devil thing. But he’s not”—she looked around the muddy landscape and dropped her voice into a whisper—“ _Satan_.”

Strix clacked his beak. Ella frowned. Even though he wasn’t human and didn’t have human facial features, she was getting better at reading him, and she could tell he was humoring her. That for some strange, inexplicable reason, this vaguely owl-shaped demon had decided that her Lucifer and his Lucifer were one and the same. It was a handy lie, but as they ventured closer to the inner circles, closer to the throne of Hell, Ella was sure it was going to bite them on the ass. Maybe even literally bite them on the ass if the demon with the mouth was anything to go by. 

“I know you don’t believe me, dude. But what happens if they tell other people? And what’s this chosen business?” 

“You are alive and in Hell.” Strix bobbed his head. “Stories have been told of living humans before you who have descended to our realm and have left to convey what they saw to those still alive. It is told.” He crossed himself with a taloned hand. It wasn’t like the crossing Ella did at church. It was a circle followed by slashes, and Ella could have sworn he was making a pentagram. 

“So I’m here so I can spread the good word of torture and torment.”

Strix nodded. “You are on a journey. It is forbidden to harm living humans who are journeying.” His feathers fluffed up, and he shrugged strange, bony shoulders. “There has been unrest in Hell. It started when Him Below left many centuries ago. He quelled the worst of it upon his return. The hordes answer his call, ever faithful, but there are rumblings. Or so I have heard.”

“You like hearing things, don’t you bud?” 

“I have very good hearing, and I like stories.” 

Ella laughed. “Oh, _someone_ likes the gossip.” 

Strix blinked at her, the expression on his feathery face one of perfect innocence. The effect was ruined by the fact that he was a weirdo owl-demon and only had a passing familiarity with facial expressions. 

“The gate is close.” Strix nodded and gestured. Ella slogged through the mud and tugged her sodden hoodie so her hands were tucked up in the sleeves. She was cold and gross and wanted to go home. 

The path to the gate was clear, or as clear as a path could be when it was covered in mud and muck. Ruins rose up around them, and the circular gate was a welcome sight. Strix thrummed as it came into view.

Ella glanced at him sideways, but braced herself for the journey. The sensation of being torn apart and put back together swept her away. 


	7. That breaks itself on that which it encounters

Ella opened her eyes. She blinked up at the blood red sky. The surrounding mountains were awash with hues of black, red, and grey. 

“Not again,” she groaned. Ella coughed; rocks poked into her back and her head throbbed. Strix clacked his beak, and his long, sinuous neck stretched over her. He stared down with large unblinking eyes. "Super duper creepy, my man," Ella told him. 

"You would not rouse,” he replied.

Ella moaned and shoved herself into a sitting position. "I don't think humans were built to traverse different planes of existence." Jagged rocks bit at her hands, and she hissed as one dug into her thigh. She looked at the palm of her hand and the little indentions the rock had left in the skin. "Bummer. TV shows make travel by transporter look so easy, and I’m over here fainting. I always thought I’d be way cooler than this." 

She looked up at the towering mountain peaks, capped with snow. Or ash. It was Hell; it could be blood and bones, for all she knew. The gate was at the edge of a chasm. It was like they’d been plopped down on the side of a mountain. 

Strix hunched in on himself and eyeballed the sky. "Come. We must go.”

Percy swooped overhead, chirping and calling, thrilled to have a sky to fly through that wasn't full of acid rain and sulphuric fumes. Ella looked around. "So this is the Fourth Circle?"

The demon flexed his talons. His head waved on his long neck. "So it is called." 

Ella staggered to her feet. Crumbling granite sloughed off the side of the path as she stumbled down the rocky incline. "Is this the right way?"

"All ways are the right way."

A shard of granite slipped from under her foot and Ella fell back on her hands. She hissed as sharp rocks pricked her palms. Her demon buddy offered a taloned hand, and she grasped it gratefully, the feel of scales against skin a strange sensation as he pulled her upright. "What does that even mean? All ways are the right way?” 

"It does not matter which path you take. They will all end at the gate." 

"That doesn't make any sense. Are there multiple gates?" They reached the end of the slope and the trail smoothed out into a narrow path that wound its way along a cliffside. The drop to one side was sheer, and Ella didn't want to lean too far out to see if the bottom was visible. The trail itself was barely a foot wide. Doors were set into the cliffside at random intervals. Some were flush with the trail; others were a few feet above. It would be a nasty surprise to come out of one of those doors and not know that a sheer drop awaited only a few footsteps away.

"No. Two gates to a level. And you must journey from one to the other, and no trail is ever the same.” 

"Is that why we haven't seen any other demons except for the weirdo hell hound guys?"

Strix bobbed his head. “Partly. It is rare to come across another. Most demons only travel from one circle to another with their Lord’s blessing. A blessing makes the path shorter and easier, but they are only given for official business.” Strix’s eyes widened. “And then there’s a talisman. If you have one of those… you can go from one circle to another in the blink of an eye. They are very rare. Only the most important officials may use them.” 

Ella brushed her hand along the stone wall and put one foot in front of another. Her shoes weren’t meant for rock climbing. One wrong step and she’d be a permanent resident. 

"But what if you need to find someone? Do you just pick random people to torture or something?"

"We rarely touch those on the upper levels. They torment themselves as their sins and guilt are minor." He tilted his head and ruffled his facial disk. "If a duke or archduke sends us after a certain soul...their name and precise location are written down. And the writing ensures that our feet bring us where we need to go." 

"Like a locator spell or something? That sounds awesome. Ignoring the torture connotations and everything."

Strix's feet scrabbled on the granite behind her as he stumbled. "I do not know what spells you speak of. I have never held rank. When I was told to retrieve a soul, I was given their name and their location, and I let my feet do the rest." 

“Did you, um, do a lot of that?” Ella asked. “Torturing the damned?”

Strix shook his head. “My rank is far too low for those pleasures.” He pulled his neck into his coat. “I ran messages and had guard duty in the Palace. Very rarely was I sent to fetch a soul.” 

The path curved along the canyon and they lapsed into silence as it narrowed even further. Ella wasn’t sure what to say or ask. As friendly as Strix was, he was still a demon. His outlook was wildly alien, and he seemed to view humans more as toys than actual people with lives and loves. Well, some of them at least. There were definitely people in Hell that didn’t deserve to be here, and others she was more than happy to see rot: Hitler, probably Ghengis Khan, Marcus Pierce…

Which begged the question: Now that she had actual proof that Hell was real, did wishing that someone would go to Hell make her a terrible person? 

By that same logic, if she was besties with a demon, what did that say about her?

The path narrowed to the point that she put her back to the cliff and inched her way along. She expected the rock to be cool to the touch, like the granite she was used to on earth, and yet her back felt like it was burning. The path wasn't wide enough to walk facing forward, so she bit her lip and shuffled on. Strix followed her example, his back to the wall. His ratty coat caught on one of the jagged upthrusts of rock, and he warbled deep in his throat as he worked to free himself. 

"Hell sucks," Ella said. 

A bit of the cliff broke away, and rocks tumbled from under her feet. Ella shuffled faster. "I take it back! Hell is awesome. Totally cool. Boy, aren't I lucky to be here! Just sightseeing my way through. Wow, would you look at that? I can't wait to tell everyone back at home. Satan rocks!" 

"What is wrong with you, human?" 

"The power of positivity. Maybe if I'm nice to Hell, it'll be nice back." 

"It's Hell," he said flatly. "Being nice would probably make it mad." 

"So is Hell its own entity then?"

"You ask the strangest things."

“But is it?”

The demon clucked low in his throat. “Hell is Hell.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Ella whooped as they rounded a bend and the path widened. Strix hissed as her shout reverberated through the canyon. She shuffled faster and could have kissed the ground when she was able to walk forward again. The path kept widening until it opened up into a wide, flat outcropping about 30 feet in diameter. It was strewn with round boulders. The smallest was the size of her fist with the largest being beach ball sized. The path continued past the outcropping, but she could see a small cave tucked away amongst some crumblings shards of granite. 

Percy landed in front of her on the outcropping and hopped onto one of the little boulders. He puffed up his feathers and started preening the gunk out from the previous circle. 

Ella threw herself on the warm ground and groaned. Everything ached and her back was screaming. She looked up at the blood red sky and the jagged granite peaks and wished she was home. She’d gone camping with friends in Colorado once and if she squinted and pretended hard enough the peaks kind of looked like the Rocky Mountains. The sky was just a particularly good sunset. She was out camping. Her friends were close by. They’d build a campfire and make smores and tell ghost stories and go to bed in warm sleeping bags curled up in sturdy tents. 

Strix warbled. A low, sad call. 

Illusion broken. It was a stretch anyways. The peaks were too jagged, the sky too red, and the rocks too warm. 

“Why haven’t I needed to eat since I got here?” Ella asked.

“We should continue,” Strix replied. “We are too exposed.”

“I’m not tired, just achy, I haven’t needed to eat or sleep, or drink.” Her eyes widened. “I haven’t even needed to pee! That can’t be good!”

“We should move,” Strix said, vehemently. He tilted his head upwards, eyes on the clouds overhead. 

Percy pecked at her hand.

“Dude, chill, I’m just trying to figure out what havoc Hell is wreaking on my insides. If I get back to Earth am I going to be famished? Guzzling water like a dehydrated lizard? Those demons— they talked about being hungry. Does this mean demons eat? Is there native flora and fauna that you guys find delicious?” She sat upright and stared at Strix in horror. “Do you eat the damned?” 

Strix opened his beak as if to answer. 

Percy threw his head back and chattered out a warning call.

A scream tore through the air. Something large and leathery dove out of the sky and landed on a large boulder just feet away from Ella. It’s claws dug into rock and the boulder—screamed.

Ella froze in fear. A large, red tail swung over her and clawed feet dug into the ground, too close for comfort. The boulders around her shrieked in response. It was a scream that sounded like nails on a chalkboard, and the overlook echoed with it. The boulders… ran for the cave. The feet that protruded from the bottom were vaguely reminiscent of chicken legs… but with an extra coating of slime and mold. 

The creature sat back on its haunches, opened its wide leathery wings and took off into the air carrying the wailing boulder with it. 

“Holy shirttails!” Ella shouted. She scooched backwards until she hit Strix’s legs. Her buddy was hunched over, his talons out like he was a velociraptor about to pounce, his head waving back and forth on his long neck. Percy landed on her shoulder, his little body tense next to her ear. 

The boulders screamed as they huddled in the shallow cave. 

A piercing cry echoed overhead, and the creature swooped back into view. It circled once, then twice, and then dropped the screaming boulder. Ella watched the boulder tumble through the sky. When it hit the ground, it cracked like an egg. The hard outer shell split open and blood and viscera spilled everywhere. Ella flinched as a warm splatter of blood hit her face. 

The creature followed it down, leather wings flaring at the last minute as it alighted on its prize with a snarl. Grit and pebbles flew everywhere as the creature—dragon—settled its wings on its back. It sunk its muzzle into the warm guts, teeth flashing as it tore into its meal. 

Ella was having that kind of out of body experience where her brain was cool, calm, and collected. Taking in all the details: the red leathery wings, the sinuous, almost snakelike body. The slender muzzle full of sharp teeth, and the four clawed legs, scraping and scrabbling at the ground. It was thirty feet from its muzzle to the tip of its forked tail. 

The creature’s wide body and leathery wings were blocking the path. There was no way through. 

Ella gaped as it took a large bite of the boulder creature and then rubbed its face through the red blood. Once its face was coated, it started rubbing the blood into its scales. 

“That’s a dragon,” Ella said, backing away from the gruesome scene and towards the shallow cave. “A dragon murdered a boulder. The dragon is eating boulder guts.”

The dragon’s head whipped around. Its eyes pinned on them, and a long, forked tongue licked blood off of its muzzle. 

It growled, and Ella could feel the vibration its body made through the rocks under her feet. Her breathing stuttered, and her palms went clammy. She couldn’t look away from its eyes. 

The dragon’s muscles coiled as it prepared to attack. 

Strix screeched and tugged at her arm. 

Percy flew off her shoulder straight for the dragon’s face.

A door opened.

They tumbled through.

The door slammed behind them.

* * *

Lucifer arrived in the blood red skies of the Fourth Circle high above Tura Fortress. 

He had to admit, it was one of the more delightful circles to fly through. None of the teeming hordes of the Sixth Circle, relatively ash free, and he didn’t have to worry about the acid and sulphur of the Third Circle. 

The Fourth Circle consisted of jagged peaks and a plethora of dragons hunting their way through the rocks. They loved to pick off demons where they could, but mostly hunted living rocks. Lucifer was rather fond of the dragons and liked to think they had some inkling of fondness for him in the pits of their big, black hearts. 

He spun high overhead, enjoying the updrafts and the feel of the wind in his feathers. It would never be the same as Earth; not that he’d enjoyed the opportunity while he was there. His relationship with his wings being rather fraught while he was there. 

So many little things he’d given up or never had the chance to experience.

It was for the best. His humans were safe, even if some of them had no idea of what he’d sacrificed. 

Chloe knew. That’s all that mattered. 

She was out there. Living her life, solving murders, taking her spawn to the beach, enjoying the feel of the ocean breeze in her hair. He hesitated to think it, but she’d probably moved on. A new partner, maybe even a new lover. He’d given up his life on Earth so she could have a life, and he wouldn’t begrudge her that, even if the thought of someone else in it made him ache. 

He spun on a wingtip. There was something about this circle… Something was off. He’d felt it on the throne and in the Hell Loops. He could practically feel the gravitational waves rippling out. Whatever it was, it was close. 

He closed his eyes and tried to focus. 

A roar rattled its way through the black rocks below. 

Focus broken, Lucifer tilted on the wing and glanced down, scanning the pinnacles. A red dragon, as long as a bus, launched into the air after a small feathery speck. 

The speck resolved itself into a bird.

Not an uncommon sight in Hell by any means, as Hell contained multitudes. But this was the first time he’d ever seen a bird attempt to take on a dragon. The courageous little chap screeched and clucked, fluttering above the dragon's head and pulling at its scales. The dragon shook its massive head and grumbled. 

The bird pestered the dragon, careful to stay above it as they gained altitude. The two ended up mere meters below Lucifer. The bird screamed at the dragon, and the dragon rumbled and growled back. It was like watching an utterly bizarre lovers spat. 

The bird gave an affronted squawk and darted in close, managing to peck the dragon’s eye with its sharp little beak. 

Lucifer spiraled above the two, unnoticed. “That’s enough of that,” he shouted at the bird. “I think he gets the point.” 

The dragon pulled even with Lucifer, and the two wheeled together on an updraft, the little bird fluttering above them, struggling to keep up with their much larger wings. Lucifer flapped his great white wings and grinned as the bird found a spot at the tip, using the slipstream cascading off of Lucifer’s wings to ease his own flight. 

The dragon grumbled as it spun synchronous to Lucifer. 

“Easy, my friend,” Lucifer said. “I’ll protect you from this little fellow.” 

The bird chirruped and coasted over Lucifer’s back, settling on his opposite wing, closer to the dragon. 

The dragon swished its long tail, red scales glittering, and eyed the bird warily. It tucked its leathery wings and dove, fanning them out at the last minute and using an updraft to shoot its way back up to barrel roll over Lucifer and his new companion. 

The bird squawked. 

“Oh let him have it,” Lucifer replied. “You’ve taken what little dignity he had, he has to reclaim it somehow.” 

The three drifted over the mountain range, carried aloft by the wind shearing off the towering peaks. Down below, a trumpet sounded, and Lucifer could hear the distant clamor of guards, no doubt arming themselves against the possibility of a dragon incursion. 

Little did they know it wasn’t the dragon they had to worry about. 

Or at least, not the dragon gamboling off of Lucifer’s right wing. The creature was clearly showing off to the little bird flying just behind Lucifer’s wingtip. If he didn’t know any better he’d say that the bird had an admirer. 

Lucifer should just let his new feathered friend loose on Tura Fortress. It had managed to cow a dragon; the Fortress would be conquered in no time. Lucifer’s right wingtip came within meters of the dragon’s left. The little bird swooped through the air, abandoning the white feathers of the devil for the red scales of the dragon. 

“Ingrate,” Lucifer muttered, repressing a smile.

Beating drums joined the trumpets. Lucifer glanced down at the scurrying demons. “I see the welcome party has arrived.” 

The dragon snorted, and with a flap of its wings, the beast angled downwards in a tight spiral, circling lower and lower above the fortress. The bird twittered around its massive head and found a perch among its many horns.

Demons screeched as it circled the fortress. Arrows flew. The dragon was unmoved. 

Lucifer chuckled, tucked his wings, and followed,

He shot through the air, angling towards the courtyard below him. 

At the last minute, he flared his wings and pulled out of the dive. If a human had tried it, their skin would be flayed from their bones from the gravitational forces. But this was Hell, and Lucifer was an Angel. No comely detectives were around to inhibit his imperviousness. 

He landed with a crack. 

The dragon roared. The bird twittered amongst its horns. 

Demons cried out in shock. 

The Devil smiled, spread his arms, and stretched his wings to their full span. “Take me to your leader,” he said.

* * *

Fluorescent lights flickered. Ella groaned. She was laid out on scuffed and filthy linoleum. A head of wilted broccoli sat in front of her face, its best days long past. 

A garbled voice over a loudspeaker attempted to make an unintelligible announcement. 

Ella gasped. “Percy,” she cried. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around the rundown grocery store frantically. “Percy!” 

Strix looked at himself in the reflection of one of the coolers. He bobbed his head and watched his reflection do the same. “Dude. Percy isn’t here.” She scrambled for the door they’d tumbled through. “He’s going to be eaten!”

Strix intercepted her, his talons clamping down on her wrist as she reached for the knob. “So will you, if you leave.” His long neck tucked itself into his jacket so his head was at her level. "Dragons are not to be trifled with." 

"But Percy." 

"You will be eaten." 

Ella shook off his hand and crossed her arms, clutching at her elbows. She rocked back and forth on her heels and looked at the white grocery store door. From inside the Hell loop, it didn't even have a handle. All she had to do was push and it would swing open and Percy would come flying in. 

"I left my bird," Ella said. 

Strix cooed and patted her on the back. 

The loudspeaker squealed and the announcement played again. 

Ella sniffed and looked around the Hell loop. 

Barely recognizable elevator music filtered through the speakers. White shelves stuffed with food, neon signs on the wall spelling out "Dairy" and "Produce." It was a grocery store. A decidedly old one judging by the shade of orange that was doing duty as an accent color. 

And by the patrons. A man with a mullet in bright green pants with elastic ankles and a tank top that showed way too much skin frowned at a display of bruised apples. 

A woman in a bright yellow dress pushed a shopping cart with a squeaky wheel. She maneuvered around Strix and Ella as if they weren’t even there.

“Are you sure we can’t leave?” Ella asked. 

Strix shook his head. 

“So where’s the soul? This is someone’s Hell loop, right? Are they just grocery shopping for all eternity?”

Shouting erupted around one of the registers at the front of the store. Ella craned her neck. “Found the soul! I wonder what you have to do that your hell is a grocery store? One of my uncles works in a grocery store back in Detroit. He mainly stocks, but—” Ella whistled —”some of the stories he tells. It’s crazy. He calls the job soul sucking, and I’m gonna have a story for him when I get back to Earth. Although I think my Tío would say,” Ella dipped her voice down a register, attempting to capture her uncle’s deep rumble. “' _Nena_ , you are talking _loco_.' And then we’d go to church followed by tacos, and he’d have the whole story out of me, and then we’d probably go back to church because ' _Pobrecita, tu imaginación está trabajando horas extras_ ' and in my Tío’s mind, there’s nothing that church can’t fix." 

The shouting intensified as they approached the register. An impatient line of people shifted and grumbled as the customer checking out fumbled with a little book. 

“Hurry up!” a man at the back of the line shouted. 

The older man dropped the little book. He bent down to pick it up and someone kicked it away from his hands. “Welfare queen.” 

The man tried to grab it again. Someone else kicked it away from him. He fell to his hands and knees, scrabbling on the dirty linoleum for the little booklet that the other customers were kicking out of his reach. 

“Look at him,” a woman in line said with a sneer. “Pathetic. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps.” She spun the booklet away from his hands with a blue high heel. 

The man sobbed. He was older, with a lined face, grey hair, and wearing shabby, ill-kempt clothes. He had the little book just in reach when someone picked it up. The customer dangled it in front of his face. "I thought God helps those who help themselves," he mocked. The old man snatched at it. 

More customers chimed in. 

“You’re just reaping what you’ve sown!”

“If you’re poor, it’s your own fault!”

More and more people crowded around the old man on his hands and knees. The shouting and haranguing got louder and louder and Ella could barely see him through the crush of bodies. Someone next to her was screaming a verse from the Bible as loud as they could. The one from Matthew her abuelita was always grumbling about when big churches wanted money. “ _For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in_.”

The little book was entirely forgotten and had somehow ended up at her feet. Ella picked it up, stepping back towards the shelves of food. Strix shuffled out of her way. She flipped through the little book. “These are food stamps. Like really old food stamps. I’ve only seen the EBT cards. Wow. You could put this in a museum.” Ella grimaced and looked at the shouting crowd. “This is awful. How can people be so horrible?” 

Strix narrowed his eyes at her.

“I know, it’s Hell, blah blah blah, but this is all things people say on Earth regularly. Someone once told my mom to go back where she came from. I was so mad. We were barely making ends meet, my parents were working all kinds of jobs, and we finally had enough money to get groceries for the week, and this lady at the store acted like we weren’t good enough to be there.” Her fingers tightened on the book of stamps as she watched the crowd shout at the old man. She’d worked so hard to get where she was. To turn her life around and not get sucked into her brother’s hustles. Especially with all the early problems she’d had: the car accident, therapy, the medication because her family thought something was wrong with her. 

She’d managed to make something of herself thanks to hard work. When she called her mom and dad, they told her how proud they were of her. They brought up how far she’d come.

They wouldn’t be proud of her now. Traveling through Hell like this. They wouldn’t get it. She barely got it herself. What about Ella Lopez was so special that she’d be _chosen_? She glanced back towards the back of the store. Towards the door to Hell. “Do you think we can leave yet?” 

Strix’s taloned toes tapped against the linoleum. “The dragon could be waiting for us.” 

“But what about Percy?”

“Are you going to fight a dragon?” Strix asked, aghast. “Do living humans have armor and claws strong enough to take down a beast of that size?” 

“Stop making sense,” Ella muttered. 

“That’s mine.” The old man plowed into her and snatched the booklet out of her hand, holding it aloft like a trophy. 

Ella yelped, and Strix’s talons on her arm were the only thing that prevented her from toppling into a display of toilet paper. 

The crowd continued jeering. “That’s my tax dollars,” a woman screamed. “You don’t deserve it.” 

“Get a job!” a pimply faced teenage boy shouted. 

The man grit his teeth, looked at Ella, and said, “I once ran one of the largest churches in the country. I had a private jet, the best clothes, a chef. My sermons were broadcast to millions.” The man turned to the crowd. “Don’t you know who I am?” he bellowed. 

“No one cares!” someone shouted back. 

“Yeah, you’re just some old geezer using up our tax dollars.” 

“Get a life!” 

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Get a job!” 

The man sobbed and tried to plow through the crowd back to the cash register and his waiting groceries. The food stamp booklet was pried out of his hands and ripped to shreds. 

The crowd dispersed, trickling back to their abandoned grocery carts and out the front door. 

The cashier frowned and picked up the grocery bags. She tucked them under her register. “I’m sorry sir, but unless you have another form of payment, I can’t let you have these.” 

The man’s mouth fell open. “But—but, it’s not my fault.” 

The cashier pushed red hair out of her face. “I’m sorry sir, but those are the rules.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Maybe if you had tithed more, you wouldn’t be in this position.” 

The loop reset.

* * *

Lucifer lounged against a rough stone wall and enjoyed the hustle of demons falling all over themselves. He could have attempted to sneak in, to catch Belial and Malphas at—whatever it was they were up to. 

But stealth in Hell was not his strong suit. Too many prying eyes who were ever watchful of the comings and goings of Hell’s King. And his appearances in the more populated areas outside of the Ninth Circle were few and far between to begin with, so he tended to cause a splash no matter where he went. 

He’d been Hell’s King since the beginning. Adulation from the demonic masses was to be expected.

His fingers twitched against the rough granite stone, and he wished for a cigarette. 

There was a flurry at the far end of the fortress, and the Chamberlain of the Fourth Circle hustled towards him. Beleth, a demon who looked rather like a giant house-cat on two legs, bowed low. The sheer variability of demons never ceased to amaze Lucifer. Some looked like something that had been left out to rot for far too long, and others looked like they wanted to knock something off a table, hack up a hairball, and judge you for it. 

It really was quite astounding to see what would crawl out of the fire next. 

Or what would be born of Lilith. Lucifer shuddered. There was something he didn’t like giving much thought to. 

A roar reverberated through the sky, amplified by the granite mountains. The red dragon spiraled high above. Its red scales against the red sky made for effective camouflage and an absolutely delightful method of terror for the exposed demons before him. 

Beleth fell to his knees before Lucifer, his furred head touching the ground. “My King,” he rumbled out. The lesser demons followed his lead, all supplicated themselves before him. 

“A little birdy told me that Belial was here,” Lucifer said. 

Beleth’s green cat eyes glanced up. His tabby eyebrows drew together. “The General arrived some time ago. He has been cloistered with the Duke since.” 

“Cloistered. Goodness. Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Yes, my King.” 

Lucifer raised his eyebrows. “Well. Produce them. Since when does your King show up and the lot of you stand around _useless_ , while Beliall and Malphas are _cloistered_? Either bring them here or point me their way." 

Beleth’s grey ears, notched and ripped from years of fighting, flattened against his head.

“As you command, my King.” Beleth rose to his feet and gestured to the door. 

Tura Fortress was larger than it appeared. Demons had been mining the mountains for eons, almost since the beginning. They pulled out granite, precious metals, and even the odd radioactive material.

The dragons made it risky to be out in the open too long, so the hordes of hell housed their legions in underground tunnels and mine shafts. The fourth circle was quite possibly one of the more populated circles of Hell. Although one wouldn’t know if they were taking a stroll along the surface. 

The chances of ending up as lunch was far too high. 

Unless you were the Devil. 

Lucifer was familiar with Tura. Malphas had been its Duke for an age. No other circle had a Duke as old and as established as the Fourth Circle. Malphas was rather like the granite mountains he called home. Constant and unbending and infallible in his devotion to Lucifer. The Shedim were like that, particularly the older ones. Deep and untrenched in their commitment to their King.

He liked Malphas. They’d once roamed the Hell loops together, long ago, when humans were still new to this realm, torturing sinners and dispensing punishment. Many of those demons, some of the first, were long gone. Consigned to the flames. Malphas, Belial, and a few others were still around. Flame mates to the very end. 

If Belial ever decided to go to the flames, Malphas would probably go with him. Lucifer had the brief image of the two demons cannonballing into the fire while Lilith stood on the sidelines yelling, Belial flipping her the bird. 

Lucifer didn’t look forward to that day. Lilith would be unbearable, and he had so few demons in Hell he trusted, especially with Maze still on Earth watching over their humans. 

He wound his way farther into Tura, heading towards Malphas’ private chambers. If the two were cloistered, that’s where they would be. Either far into their drink, conspiring, or in flagrante delicto. Which Lucifer could believe of Belial, Dad only knows how many Lilim he’d fathered on Lilith, but Malphas had always viewed sex as an unfortunate human failing. He’d always looked down on Lilith for her appetites. 

Lucifer he ignored. It wouldn’t do to speak poorly of the King and the King’s appetites. Not that Lucifer indulged much in Hell. The realm had a knack for ruining anything he loved. 

Beleth padded ahead of Lucifer, his front paws tucked into his robes. 

Beleth nodded and gestured at an ornate gold door inlaid with all manner of gems. Lucifer grimaced. It depicted the creation of Hell. A golden Lucifer falling into a flaming pit, spread diamond wings lighting on fire, in an elaborate mosaic of rubies. Jeweled demons streamed out of the flames towards the bottom of the door.

Lucifer pushed the door open and strode into the room, “Hello Malphie,” he said, a wide grin on his face. 

Malphas lifeless eyes stared back. Black blood splashed all over the room and Lucifer’s boots squelched in a mess of intestines. 

He stopped and blinked down at the body.

Behind him, Beleth wailed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for y'all's patience. I've held off on posting because things are getting more complicated and the circles need to be finished as a whole before I put them up. And to think, when I first started writing this fic, I thought it was gonna be a fun straightforward thing that would barely crack 50k. Ah, such innocent times.


	8. Clearly enough their voices bark it forth

Lucifer crouched beside Malphas’ shredded body. The old demon’s belly was cut open, his intestines tangled beside him. One hand, its fingers cut off, clutched at the wound in death. 

Very little could kill demons. They were enormously resilient creatures, and even a bit of disemboweling wouldn’t have stopped Malphas for long. Lucifer had seen demons gather up their own guts, stuff them back into their body cavities, and continue on as if nothing had happened. 

For a demon to die of its wounds… that meant hell-forged steel. 

And not just any old blade. One forged in the infernal flame of Hell’s creation. 

Behind him, Beleth wailed into his paws. 

Lucifer grit his teeth and squashed his bubbling rage. Malphas was a friend, an old one at that. As much as any demon who hadn’t spent a significant amount of time on Earth could be. They’d roamed Hell loops together. They’d tortured damned souls together. He’d given Malphas this posting and had tied him to it at Malphas’ request. 

Beleth’s wail shifted into one of high pitched panic. His paws were in his mouth and he was tugging at his lower jaw as he cried. 

“Shut it,” Lucifer told the demon, furious. The Fourth circled quivered with his pent up rage. Beleth’s paws slipped out of his mouth and his jaws snapped together with an almost audible click. 

Lucifer rose to his feet and looked around the room. Blood was splattered across a tapestry on the far wall. A table was tipped over and piles of parchment were scattered about the room. Liquid from a pitcher that had one sat on the table mingled with black blood.

Malphas had never been a demon one would consider easy on the eyes. He was rotund. Goat like legs, an enormous drooping belly, and covered in coarse, wiry hair. He had the face of a man, albeit an atrociously ugly one. A wide nose, drooping jowls, phlegmy eyes, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. 

He’d also had a delightfully filthy sense of humor and a knack for making damned souls scream. The butt trumpet idea had been his entirely, and sometimes Lucifer swung by that particular Hell loop simply for a laugh. 

“Malphie, Malphie, Malphie, what did you get into?”

Lucifer looked back at Beleth, whose ears were pinned to the back of his head and his nose wrinkled in distaste. 

“Where is Belial?” 

“I know not, My King.”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. 

Beleth wrung his paws. “Belial arrived, demanded to see the Duke, and the two sequestered themselves in the Duke’s chambers.” 

“Was there anyone else in the room? Anyone who could have come or gone?”

Beleth shook his head. 

“Are you sure? Were you guarding the door the entire time?”

“No, My King. The Duke spent a great amount of time in his chambers going over paperwork. He never wanted guards.” 

“Gather anyone who’s seen Malphas in the past day. Scour the Fortress and the surrounding area. I need information. And, Beleth, don’t touch the crime scene. I want it preserved. Look through the Hell loops if you have to, but I want someone who can look at the scene and tell me what happened. You can feed the body to the dragons after it’s been analyzed.” 

Beleth nodded and dashed off. 

Lucifer pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, “where’s a perky crime scene tech when one needs one?” 

Or the Detective. He’d been on enough crime scenes to know the procedures. This was familiar territory, but it would never be comfortable without the Detective. He looked back at his murdered Duke, one of the demons that had been with him the longest and had always been unflagging in his devotion. 

Rage simmered under his skin. 

All signs pointed to Belial. He was last seen with Malphas in this room, he was currently nowhere to be found, and it was well known that Belial used a talisman in his role as Hell’s General. Visiting location after location, overseeing the running of the legions. 

The talisman had been made from one of Lucifer’s dropped alula feathers. It allowed its wielder to move between circles with an ease that only the Devil himself enjoyed. Faster and more expedient than a blessing from a bound Duke. A talisman was the greatest gift a demon could receive and an enormous sign of trust on Lucifer’s part. 

And now Malphas was dead and Belial was missing. 

But where was the motive? Malphas and Belial had gotten along as well as two demons could. They were flame mates. There was a bond there, and while it wasn’t unusual for flame mates to not like each other, it was highly unusual for one to kill another. 

Murder amongst demons, shockingly, was fairly low. 

And why would Belial flee? Where would he have gone? 

What would Chloe do?

She’d do exactly what he’d already ordered. Close the crime scene, find witnesses and begin the investigation while forensics was bagging evidence. Except this was Hell. Where was he going to find a forensic scientist?

* * *

There was no mad dash out of the Hell loop. 

Strix pushed the door open. His neck accordioned around the door to peer around. 

Ella hissed behind him. “Dude, the dragon is going to come down and behead you. It’ll pluck off your head, and I’ll be sad and you don’t want to make me sad. I ugly cry. It’s not pretty!”

Strix warbled. “The dragon is gone.” 

Ella tugged at his coat. “Do you see Percy?”

Strix pushed the door open, and Ella stumbled onto the path after him, happy to leave the grocery store Hell loop. She was going to have crowd anxiety the next time she went shopping, she just knew it. Someone was gonna yell, and she was going to roll up to Linda’s babbling about it. That is, if she could afford to see Linda in a professional capacity, which she couldn’t. 

The living boulders were shivering in their alcoves, so it couldn’t have been too long since they’d thrown themselves into the Hell loop. Or maybe the boulders had more anxiety than she did, being out in the open and getting eaten by dragons like they were. 

The cliff face towered above them, and it was a sheer drop on the other side of the trail. Granite spires rose from the gloom of the canyon, and if anyone fell over the edge, there would be no surviving the fall. With dragons, actual dragons, patrolling the skies, everything was exposed. Cover was hiding under scraps of rock and hoping for the best. 

Or the rooms. Always the rooms. She really didn’t want to hang out in any more rooms. 

“Percy,” Ella whisper-called. 

Nothing. 

She tried again, but louder. “PERCY!” The little bird’s name reverberated through the mountains.

Strix shrieked and ducked, his head pulled into his coat as far as it would go, and his talons covered his head. 

“Oh— dude, I’m sorry. That was too loud.” Ella pressed herself against the rock wall and scanned the sky, looking for movement of either the dragon or bird variety. Her heart thundered in her chest at the prospect of facing a dragon again. 

"Come. Come," Strix beckoned and tugged on her arm. "We must keep moving. We are exposed."

"Right. Cool. Yeah, gotta keep moving." She took one shaky step and then another. Her shoes slipped over the gravel, and she dug her toes into the bottoms to provide any kind of grip on the rocky slope. "Strix," Ella said. She focused on the hole in his jacket. Grey feathers were poking out of it. She tried not to think of Percy. "Did you come through this circle before? To get to your posting with Mineos?" 

Strix bobbed his head, the movement evident even from behind him. "Yes. When I was transferred from my legion, I traveled with a caravan to Mineos court. The paths are easier when you travel with the blessings of your Lord. We are but two and carry no blessings with us, so the path is more difficult."

"So the path changes?” 

"It is never the same," Strix replied. “If we were to retrace our steps, it would not work. There is no going back. The only way out is through." 

“That makes no sense." 

Strix shrugged bony shoulders, completely unbothered. 

The path started angling up and the conversation died as Ella huffed and puffed. 

She heard a little warble overhead, and Percy dove into view, chittering away. 

"Percival Fluffy Bottoms Lopez. Where have you been?" Ella cried as the scrub jay landed on her shoulder. He trilled into her ear and started preening loose strands of hair. "Don't you butter up to me now, mister. You up and vanished on me. Which, totally understandable, we almost got eaten by a dragon and then had to hide in a Hell loop." She shivered. "I almost got eaten by a dragon. Well, could have been eaten by a dragon. In Hell. I'm on a journey through Hell with a demon who's part bird as well as an actual bird, and we almost got eaten by a dragon. Nope. Still sounds weird. If I make it out of here, no one is going to believe me. Chloe is going to roll her eyes and probably have me take a drug test. She's a tough cookie that one, but hey, maybe she'll laugh."

Strix's feet slipped on the granite as he raised his long neck, and he peeked over his shoulder at her. "Who is this Chlo-e?”

Ella scritched at Percy's tiny head, careful to be gentle. "Chloe is awesome. She's a homicide detective for the LAPD. She and Lucifer were partners for a few years. He helped her solve murders. They were totally awesome at it too. Their solve rate was crazy high. I even had money in the betting pool that they'd get together. She was head over heels for him, and whenever he looked at her you could practically see the heart eyes. Super adorbs. I have all the warm fuzzies just thinking about it."

"Him Below is in love with a _human_?" Strix sounded aghast, as if his world had tilted on its axis.

"Naw man. Lucifer Morningstar, crazy rich eccentric nightclub owner who thinks he's the Devil, is in love with Chloe. Pretty sure he's not actually the Devil. That would be nuts."

"You are in Hell." Strix pointed out. 

"I'm half convinced I'm having some crazy bonkers dream and am going to wake up in my own bed, but even so, I'm going to cling to whatever normality I can. And in the normal Ella world, Satan isn't on the LAPD payroll as a consultant. Plus, if I think about where I am too hard, I’m going to come to pieces, and it won’t be pretty.” 

They passed a few boulders that shivered in their wake. As they walked, the boulders shivered more and more. "Hey Strix, my man. Are the boulder creatures supposed to be doing that?" 

Strix's head swiveled, and his neck gave the impression of a spiral staircase as it moved. His great yellow eyes blinked and widened as he took in the behavior of the boulders. 

"So that's not normal?"

Strix's feathers fluffed out, his back bowed, and his taloned hands angled themselves as if they were ready to fight. Ella shifted closer to his back, Percy coming to attention on her shoulder. "Stay close," Strix told her. "The path is too narrow to put up a good fight and not tumble over the edge." 

“Fight? Strix, what’s going on?”

Strix shook his head and flexed his talons. 

Ella took hold of his raggedy jacket, her fingers clutching at threadbare fabric. She could feel the shafts of feathers moving underneath. The two of them walked forward, her holding on to him, Strix primed to attack. 

The ambush came from below. There was a great rumble of rocks, and a stone creature, larger than the grizzly bear Ella had once seen at the zoo, climbed over the edge. It swiped at Ella's foot. She stumbled and fell. A huge stone hand wrapped around her ankle as the thing snarled, its rough hewn face twisting to show off its jagged teeth. Strix's talons caught her arms, and he held on with all his might, his back braced against the stone cliff behind him. Percy cawed overhead, dislodged by Ella's fall. 

Ella screamed as her ankle was wrenched, the bones grinding together under the creature’s grasp. 

Strix's talons started to slip, and she was pulled backwards. Her hips and legs were already over the edge, and if she slipped any more, that would be it. Strix's taloned feet dug into the dirt. Pain shot through her spine. The stone creature holding onto her legs laughed like stones being ground together. 

It had her. This was it. This was _it_.

* * *

Lucifer grimaced and pushed a stack of parchment aside. He had adjourned to the receiving room rather than linger long amongst the blood and guts of the murder scene, while Beleth relayed his instructions to find witnesses and some sort of forensic analyst. 

He pulled out an old chair and settled back to wait for Beleth to arrive with potential witnesses. He slid his fingers along worn grooves on the armrests, crossed his legs, and watched a sheet of parchment flutter off the twisted desk and onto the floor. 

What had Malphas been up to? 

Malphas was a logistics genius, and he kept the circles supplied with raw materials and precious ores. The torture chambers of the Eighth Circle and the forges of the Ninth would be screaming bloody murder if their supply of knives, chains, and various other tools of their trade was interrupted somehow. 

Whining demons were not high on Lucifer’s list of Hellish delights. 

Now Malphas was dead, Belial missing, and all signs pointed to some sort of struggle. He had a vague timeline thanks to Lilith’s irritability and Ver’s information, but there was more going on. A Duke didn’t end up murdered over a little squabble between friends. Especially between Shedim. 

The Lilim would off each other given half a chance, or at least try to; attempted murder was practically a form of sibling bonding for the Lilim. 

For one of the Shedim to kill another, it was almost unheard of. Belial and Malphas were flame mates. They’d crawled out of the flames together, the product of the same spawning. That bond was rarely broken. At least not that Lucifer had ever heard of. 

There was more brewing. He could tell. Hell was… he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. There was the ever expanding presence of who knows what winding its way through Hell. He’d thought it was in the Second Circle not too long ago, and now he’d felt it in the Fourth. He shook his head. The presence flickered in and out. He could see the waves it was making, but not what was making them. 

It was probably his Dad’s fault, whatever it was. 

He wished Chloe were here.

Not that he wanted the Detective in hell. What little remained of his heart would shatter if he ever saw her here. She deserved better. They all deserved better. Maybe not Detective Douche, but he still didn’t want to stumble across Dan amongst the damned. 

Beleth’s voice echoed in the corridors outside Malphas’ chambers. Lucifer sat up straight and smiled as Beleth ushered in the first cowering demon. One of Malphas courtiers. One of Lilith’s brood. 

The demon stood in front of Lucifer, wrung its claws together, and bowed low. “I am Zert. I oversaw the Duke’s schedule.” 

Lucifer leaned forward. “Tell me Gert,” he said, purposefully mangling the demon’s name, “where were you when Malphas was killed? And don’t lie. You know what I think of lies.” 

Gert shivered. “I saw Belial to the Duke’s chambers and left. Malphas does, did, not like to be disturbed when his door was closed.” 

“He could be a bit of a recalcitrant teenager at times, yes.” 

“I was on the fortifications, My King. The tower guards have a game of knucklebones I join when the Duke doesn’t require me. They can tell you.” 

“Was there anything that stood out?” 

“My King?” 

“You oversaw Malphas’ schedule. Was there anything that was strange or anything that deviated, Dert?”

“We have been having issues with the shipments,” Dert said. “Malphas was spending time in the mines trying to find the problem.” 

“And, what problem did you find?” 

“The ore is being mined, My King. As it ever was. It was being shipped out, but there were discrepancies. Malphas and I were combing through them when Belial showed.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me what you found.” 

“Nothing yet. We had just started.” 

“Oh, cut off at the knees. Sounds like someone didn’t want you to find anything. Any idea who, Yert?”

Yert shook his head. 

Lucifer threw up his hands and leaned back in the chair. “No conjecture? No guesses? No finger pointing? No?”

“I-I-um,” Yert stuttered. The demon shook his head. 

“You can go. If you think of anything, bring your concerns to the Chamberlain. I’m sure he’s _dying_ to report them.” 

Beleth froze at the door and looked back at Lucifer with large eyes. 

Lucifer smiled wide. 

Yert sidled through the doorway and disappeared. Beleth showed the next demon in, and the process repeated. 

Demon after demon after demon. 

Malphas clearly spent time outside his chambers and receiving room. He frequented the mines and personally oversaw the running of the Fourth Circle. True, he delegated a large portion of the work, but his subordinates had been in their roles for ages and were competent in their work. 

But there was still that thread, that undercurrent working its way through the Fourth Circle. Something was wrong, and Malphas had been after it. 

But how did Belial fit in? 

“I’ll call in the next one,” Beleth said from the doorway. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Lucifer replied. He leaned forward and flipped through some of the papers. He wasn’t terribly interested in rosters and schedules, but Malphas had been apparently. 

Beleth blinked back at him. 

“Who stood to gain the most from Malphas’ death?” Lucifer asked. 

“My King?” 

“It’s you, isn’t it, Beleth?” Lucifer looked up. He drummed his fingers on the table. “You’ve been second in command of the Fourth Circle for an age now. Always a rung below Malphas, having to do his bidding and follow his orders.”

“My King, Shedim do not kill other Shedim.” Beleth shook his head. “Yes, the Fourth Circle falls under my command, but only at the will of my King.” He prostrated himself across the floor. 

“Tell me what you know, Beleth. These problems Malphas was looking into. They don’t just happen without someone higher up the food chain noticing.” Fire lit behind Lucifer’s eyes, and Beleth whimpered. “Tell me,” he commanded. 

Beleth shook his head. 

Lucifer growled, and the room shook with the force of his anger. 

Beleth whimpered. “I didn’t kill Malphas. I didn’t. I am your loyal subject.” 

“You wanted the Dukedom— _coveted_ it.” The floor rumbled. “You’d waited so long.” 

“Yes, yes.” Beleth sobbed.

Lucifer leaned in, “Tell me your part in this, Beleth.” 

The demon shook his head and cowered. “I didn’t… I showed Belial to Malphas' chambers. I didn’t”—he sobbed—” I didn’t _kill_ him.”

“But you benefited from it.” The rumbling intensified. “Do you know who was behind it, Belial? Someone else?”

He shook his head.

“Put aside other loyalties, Beleth. Your fealty is to me and me alone.”

Beleth gibbered and clutched at the stone floor. “Yes. To you, only you.” 

“Swear.” Lucifer said. It resonated through the room, through the fortress, and through the Fourth Circle itself as he cast out his presence and leaned on the firmament of Hell. “Swear your fealty.” 

“I swear,” Beleth shouted, eyes screwed shut. 

Lucifer grinned. Fire burned in his eyes, and pale, pristine skin sloughed off revealing a scarred and burnt figure. Great bat wings filled the room. He pulled on the threads that bound him to Hell, and deep in the Ninth Circle, the infernal flames raged with power. 

The Fourth Circle shook on its foundations, the very firmament of its being twisting as Lucifer tied Beleth to the circle, ensuring he was forever connected to it. He had done this for Malphas before the first humans trickled into Hell, and he’d done this for every Shedim Duke since. 

He spoke in the first language. The language that had lit stars and set them in the vastness of space. 

The Fourth Circle rocked with the force of it.

* * *

Ella screamed. The creature pulled on her ankle, trying to drag her down. She clutched at Strix, desperate to escape. 

The creature laughed as Strix’s hand slipped. 

A voice like thunder washed over the landscape. Not just a voice: many voices speaking in tandem. In a language that made her want to prostrate herself on the ground in terror. 

The ground shook under them. The mountains rocked. 

The creature holding onto her leg shrieked and let go, sliding back into the dark depths of the canyon, and was swallowed by shadow. Strix pulled on Ella’s arms and hauled her back over the ledge. They huddled together on the path. Percy landed on Ella’s shoulder and burrowed into her hoodie. 

The voice called out. It was beautiful and melodic and terrifying and grotesque all at the same time. Ella’s skin prickled, and it felt like it was about to shiver off her body; her every nerve was alight, and the urge to spill all her innermost desires bubbled up. She threw her head back and shouted them into the sky.

“I hope Chloe never finds out I slept with Dan!” 

Strix hunched next to her clutching his arms, his talons gouging into the fabric of this jacket. His eyes were screwed shut. He warbled and flattened his feathers. 

“I want to streak through the precinct naked with balloons tied to my arms!”

The voice intensified and rocks tumbled off the cliff near where Ella and Strix were huddled together. 

“I want Jay to stop acting so weird and nice around me!”

The ground heaved upwards, and Strix cried out. 

“I want to make money off my time in Hell and use it to get rid of my student loans!”

The voice echoed once more through the canyons and vanished. 

The silence was so sudden and complete that her ears rang in its absence. As the ringing faded, she could hear the blood rushing through her veins and the beat of her heart. Her ragged breathing sounded like a freight train. 

It took minutes, or maybe hours, for Ella’s joints to unlock enough to move. When she finally unwound herself, she found her ankles surrounded by boulders. One had even climbed into her arms. She blinked at it, not quite comprehending why she was hunched over and cuddling a boulder creature. She carefully put it down and stroked its round granite dome. It shivered and cooed. 

“I’m totally not trying to take advantage of you guys,” Ella told the boulder creature, once she had pulled her shattered nerves together enough to form words. “But student loans are a bitch.”

Strix warbled. His talons had migrated to the top of his head and were buried in his feathers. 

Ella touched his shoulder.

He shrieked and jumped. 

“It’s just me. It’s me, Strix.” Ella managed a wobbly smile. “We’re okay.” She staggered upright and hissed as she put weight on her ankle. Whatever that creature was, it had wrenched it hard. 

Strix clambored to his feet and set about adjusting his oddly fitting clothes. “We should move,” he said. “We do not want it to come back.” 

They leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder, Percy fluttering over head, and limped down the path. The boulder creatures shivered and followed in a strange rock parade. 

They didn’t make it far. 

A pebble bounced down the trail towards them. Strix’s talons clamped on Ella’s forearm as he shoved her behind him. 

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” 

Strix hissed. 

Four demons, looking just as shaky as she felt, leveled quaking spears at them. Their leader, a pudgy demon who was oozing slime and looked as if his armor was slowly being swallowed by it, smiled and pointed a pudgy finger at Ella. “Is this the soul the Chamberlain is looking for?”

Ella’s eyes widened when she realized the demon was referring to her. 

“I am escorting her,” Strix replied. 

“Yes,” the pudgy demon said. “I can see that. Is this the soul that can read death?”

Strix tilted his head. 

The pudgy demon squelched down in his armor. “No matter, we’ll bring her. If she can’t do it, we’ll torture her.” His smile was gummy. “We’ll torture her even if she can do it. I haven’t had a soul to torture in… _never_. Always wanted to see what all the fun was about.” 

“Um, I think I’ll just go back that way,” Ella said. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I don’t want to be a bother.” 

“Oh, please run,” the pudgy demon said, and giggled.

“You will not hurt her,” Strix told them. 

“And what are you going to do about it?” one of the other demons asked. 

“The Chamberlain asked for her,” Strix said, his neck turned her way, and Ella could see the fear in him. “If she is harmed, he will not be pleased.”

Pudgy demon horked and spat in front of them. “Then make sure she comes without a fight.” 

Strix nodded and gestured. Ella grit her teeth and walked towards pudgy demon and friends. Her ankle wobbled as she put pressure on it, and she almost toppled over. Strix grabbed her arm and pulled her upright. 

“She broken?” Pudgy asked. 

“We were beset by a monster,” Strix replied. “It climbed up from below.” 

“Trolls,” a high pitched voice shouted from the back of the motley group. It was a little demon, riding on the back of another. The little demon giggled and waved nubby, fingerless hands. “They like to eat the unaware.” It tilted its tiny gargoyle head. “Are you new?”

Strix thrummed next to Ella, his talons pinching at her skin as he tensed up. She looked down at the ground, trying to play the role of a terrified soul plucked from torture. Which didn’t feel too far from the truth. 

“I was recently transferred from Dís.” 

“Oh, you’re one of _those_.” The pudgy demon snorted. “I don’t know what Dís is coming to that an entire legion was disbanded and reassigned. That would never happen in the Fourth Circle.” 

Strix bristled. His feathers puffed up and his long neck extended so his head was waving back and forth in front of his stomach. His talons tightened on Ella’s wrist. “Say that again,” Strix challenged. 

The pudgy demon smiled. “With pleasure.” It flexed a massive pudgy fist. 

“Ohhh-kay,” Ella said, “So um, didn’t we have somewhere to be?” 

“Yeah,” the little demon said. “His lordship said to search the Hell loops for a human.” It giggled. “We found a human. Let's bring her back. We can have fun with her when she’s done pleasing his lordship.” 

“Nope. That does not sound good,” Ella muttered.

Strix hissed next to her. 

They were between a rock and a hard place. Which seemed to be the general theme of this particular circle of Hell. There wasn’t anywhere to escape, and if they tried to run, the demons would overtake them quickly. And it wasn’t like she and Strix were armed and could fight them off, even if Strix was itching to go at it with Pudgy. The path was narrow, and there were sheer drops and freaking dragons. No way did she want to be in the middle of a fight between demons. Ella Lopez was no fool, and she wasn’t looking to be a human pancake. Nope. She was getting out. of. here. And if that meant playing pretend and being dragged back to see his _Lordship_ , well, she’d deal with that when they got to it. 

Pudgy snorted, and a long line of snot dripped out of his nose. “Ew,” Ella said, quietly. The demon shook his spear at her and Strix. 

Strix’s grip relaxed on her wrist as he stepped forward. Ella limped after him, favoring her wrenched ankle. 

The little demon clambered onto the opposite shoulder of his much larger compatriot and grinned down at Ella. “What’s your name, human?” the demon asked. 

“Um... “ Ella coughed. “Eleanor Shellstrop.” 

The demon giggled. 

They formed a line. Two demons in front of Ella and Strix and two demons taking up the rear. The little demon rode right in front of Ella, leering at her and giggling the whole way. 

Ella kept her eyes on the crumbling path and put one foot in front of the other, even if little frisions of pain shot up and down her ankle every time she put her foot down. 

The demons picked their way over the rubble from the Hell quake. They seemed as nervous as Ella was. The demons in front of her kept their spears angled slightly towards the cavernous drop beside their narrow trail. And the demons behind kept their spears pointed up, towards the dragons that hunted in the sky. 

“So, I gotta ask, but what was with the voice?”

Pudgy grunted and slurped his shoulders into himself in what looked like an attempt to look smaller. 

“Does that happen often? Is this normal? Suddenly a voice rattles Hell and you spill your guts? Cause I’m feeling a little embarrassed about the whole balloon confession.” 

The demons shuffled and looked around nervously. The small giggling demon hid its face in the neck of the demon it was riding on. 

“Okay. Things just got tense, so I’ll just… um, not talk.” She mimed zipping her lips shut. 

The demons led them off a side shoot of a trail, higher and higher until they reached a cave. As they entered, the red light from the sky receded and darkness reigned. Strix put a taloned hand on her arm and acted as a guide for her stumbling feet through the black. 

Percy huddled against her neck. 

“Stairs,” Strix whispered, and she was glad he did because she floundered her way up the twisting, uneven staircase. 

The demons were silent as they moved. She could barely tell they were there, except for the occasional pebble that came cascading down the steps. Usually for her to slip on.

The stairs felt endless. Up and up they went, and Ella could feel the burn in her hamstrings and calves. Her ankle screamed for a reprieve. She tugged on Strix’s arm, hoping for a break, but he didn’t slow. Nor did he say a word. They climbed, and Ella hoped she wasn’t making a terrible decision to go along with the demons rather than trying to run. 

She’d lucked out with Strix. She’d found him when she hadn’t been certain of what was going on, or where to go. He’d been curious and friendly and so different from what she thought demons were. Even Maze, who liked to call herself a demon, was more prickly and terrifying than Strix. And yeah, she’d seen some shit since coming to Hell. The two hellhound handlers being front in center in the oh-god-what-the-fuck. But Strix, he was good people. Or a good demon. As good as a demon got. He was strange and weird and left of center, but he wasn’t tying her onto a rack and playing with hot pokers. 

Her feet skidded on gravel, and it was only Strix’s talons on her arm that kept her from eating dirt. He hauled her upright, and she tried to get her screaming muscles to behave as the steps continued on. Strix guided her around a corner and a little pinpoint of red light was visible in the distance. Ella’s eyes strained, and she found a second wind to get her out of the darkness and back into daylight. Or was it hell light? 

The hell light grew brighter, and when they finally stepped out of the arched opening, a landscape of mountain peaks spread out before her. 

The tunnel opened up onto a vast castle complex. Towers and spires soared skyward. It was dark and foreboding and defied expectation as part of it was built into the mountain itself. Towers looked as if they were about to topple over and were being held together by sheer will. One wall was crumbling on a cliff edge and stairs zig zagged all over the place, no handrails to be seen. A trebuchet was situated on a tall platform, demons milling underneath. Building inspectors would have had a field day with this place. 

Ella gasped. “Dude,” she muttered under her breath. Percy chirped on her shoulder and bounced from one side to the other. He bounced onto the top of her head and used it as a springboard, taking off towards the fortress calling loudly. 

“Tura Fortress,” the little demon said. “The seat of power for Malphas, Duke of the Fourth Circle. Long may he reign. Appointed to the position by Lucifer the Morningstar, King of Hell and Him Below, Prince of Darkness, Son of Perdition, Beast of the Pit, Ignitor of the Infernal Flame, Long may his darkness spread."

“Oh,” Ella replied. “Those are some serious titles. I think I’ll stick to my Lucifer, you know… Lucifer Morningstar, Consultant for the LAPD, Nightclub Owner, BFF, Chloe’s Partner… Long may he party.”

The demon crinkled its little face in confusion, and Pudgy blinked dumbly at her. Strix leaned in. “She is personal friends with Him Below.” 

Ella eyed her suddenly rapt audience. “Um, yeah, ha. We’re, um, friends.” 

“ _You_ know Him Below?” Pudgy asked. He stuck his plump hands on his hips and looked her up and down scathingly. The little demon made a churring sound in the back of its throat. 

“Yeah.” Ella squeaked, and considered tossing herself over the edge of the cliff. Her mouth ran away with her sometimes, and she was having a hard time with all the casual devil talk. Of course her Lucifer wasn’t the Devil, but every time the devil was brought up, all she could think about was her friend. It wasn’t exactly a lie; she and Lucifer were friends. He just wasn’t _that_ Lucifer.

It was also going to bite her in the ass. She just knew it. In for a penny though, and if the bluffing got her out a tight spot...

“So, um, yeah. I’m friends with Lucifer Morningstar.” She scuffed her foot across the rough granite and managed a weak smile.

Pudgy snorted. One of the other demons, a long lanky demon that had an exposed ribcage leaned close and muttered something in a harsh, guttural language. One of the demons from behind her chimed in. The conversation was fast, and involved frantic gesturing.

Ella leaned over and bumped against Strix. He watched the conversation like it was a volleyball match. His head twisted on his long neck as each demon argued. “What are they saying?” she whispered. 

“They are not sure they believe you.” 

“Well. That’s totally fair.”

The little demon chittered. It sounded like a hundred angry mice and Ella cringed away from it. 

“They’ve decided to let his lordship decide.” 

Pudgy struck the ground with the butt of his spear. Ella was shoved back into the middle of the group. 

The entrance to the fortress wasn’t far. The closer they got, the more the demons tensed up, as if they weren’t sure what awaited them. The more the demons tensed up, the more stressed Ella became. This was a bad idea. They should have run. She and Strix could have hacked it out in the mountains floundering their way towards the gate. There was just the little problem of a troll attack, and thank the Big Guy for that voice, or whatever it was. Although Ella wasn’t sure she wanted to meet whoever it was that could shake a mountain just by speaking. 

This was such a bad idea.


	9. The undiscerning life which made them sordid

The new duke curled up on the floor, his paws wrapped around furry knees. He whimpered and cried. Lucifer rolled his eyes and retreated back to Malphas desk. 

Beleth may have been involved with whatever happened to Malphas, but now he was bound to the Fourth Circle. It wasn’t as immediate and intimate as the tie Lucifer had to Hell, but the responsibility of it would press on Beleth. It would always be there in the back of his mind: lingering, demanding... 

It was partly why Lucifer enjoyed Earth so much. The incessant clamor quieted, and he could lose himself. He didn’t have to worry about his responsibilities, and he didn’t have to fear being swept away in the rushing flames of Hell’s existence. 

He could be himself, _just himself_ , in a way he couldn’t in Hell. 

The Shedim, by their nature and creation, could be tied to their circles. It was a small mimicry of Lucifer’s relationship with Hell. 

Beleth was his now. His appointed Duke, consecrated and tied. It may have been part of Beleth’s plan to assume the dukedom and oversee the Fourth Circle, but Lucifer was the one who had given it to him, and he wasn’t about to let the groveling cat forget it anytime soon. 

The appointment was going to go over like a lead balloon with the archdukes. 

Not that their opinions mattered or that they had a say in decisions he made, but with his many absences, some of the dukes and archdukes had been appointed in absentia. He’d found it charmingly democratic and had let the appointments stand. The Lilim, as much as Hell was home for them, couldn’t be tied to the circles like Shedim could. The one time he’d tried, it had ended rather poorly. Those pesky human genes. 

Not that any Lilim would claim they were human. They were far from it. 

They were going to be frothing at the mouth. A duke murdered, a new duke appointed, Hell’s head general who knows where, and the main suspect to boot. 

He wanted a drink. 

Beleth hiccuped and whined. 

“Quit it,” Lucifer snapped. “You got what you wanted.” 

Beleth wailed. 

Lucifer sighed and grabbed a stack of paperwork. He leaned back into the chair, his heels kicked back on the desk. His demons loved paperwork, Malphas most of all. He flipped through the rosters and schedules, eyes darting over the harsh demonic script. He knew for a fact that the human who’d invented the concept was suffering all manner of tortures. It really was a shame the trend had spread through Hell. 

Lucifer set the pages aside, bored and a bit annoyed at Beleth’s dramatics. “Pull yourself together. We’ve a murder to solve, and I will not hold your paw through this. As soon as your demons find a soul who can do a crime scene analysis, I want the report sent to me, and only me.” 

Beleth pushed himself upright on quaking limbs, and nodded. 

Lucifer glared. “I expect this supply problem to be rectified, Beleth. Do not displease me.” 

Beleth took a deep shaky sigh and nodded. “As you will, my King.”

“Good. Do not delay. I expect results.” Lucifer stood and in a flurry of wings left Beleth to his responsibilities. 

He reappeared high above the fortress, a tiny speck, barely visible to the demons below. He wheeled high above and looked down on the Fourth Circle. 

Something moved in the clouds. 

Lucifer tucked his wings tight as the dragon dropped down beside him. 

Tiny black and grey scales glistened on the top of its body, while its underbelly gleamed like fresh blood. It shook its red, scaly head and pinned its eyes on him. Lucifer dipped into a thermal and spiraled higher. The dragon followed. 

“Where did your friend go?" 

The dragon rumbled. 

“Ah, love is fickle.” 

It wheezed brokenly. 

“Know any good therapists?” Lucifer asked. 

The beast curled its lips. 

“Me in love with a human, you pining after a bird. We are in a right state, my friend.”

A line of demons wound its way into the fortress far below. Lucifer watched them plod along with narrowed eyes. He beat his wings and angled away from Tura fortress, the dragon keeping pace. There was still the matter of the disturbance he’d felt. It was here, in the Fourth Circle; he just couldn’t quite get a read on it. 

He closed his eyes. The wind howled over the edges of the red capped mountains. What he was looking for was close. He knew it. But that faint signal, the gravity waves of its passing… they were faint. Barely noticeable. 

He tilted downwards, into a narrow canyon. Doors rattled along the pathway, and his longest primary feathers brushed against rock, scoring the cliffs, with each downbeat. He searched, not entirely sure what it was he was looking for. 

Something had entered his realm, of that he was certain. This unknown creature was in the same circle as his murdered duke and his missing general. It couldn’t be a coincidence. But he couldn’t quite figure out where it was… or what it was… 

He shook his head, opened his eyes, and landed on an outcropping. The remnants of a half eaten living rock was strewn about. Deep gouges marred the stone. Lucifer glanced up at the dragon wheeling in the red sky above. 

He paced the length of the outcropping, head tilted, wings out, and eyes half-lidded. Whatever it was had been here. That he was sure of. 

But wherever it was now… He couldn’t tell. He could feel the occasional spark, the chaos it created in its wake, but it was as if it was… hidden. It reminded him of the last few times, all those ages ago, when a living human had wandered into Hell. 

He’d been gone for Dante’s excursion, one of his Earthly vacations, and ironically enough was in Florence when Dante was in Hell. There was one particular lady, the wife of one of the banking families, that had been extraordinarily talented with her tongue. He’d been furious when he’d come back to Hell and found he’d missed Dante. Even more so when that slanderous poem had been published. 

He’d been delighted when Dante’s damned soul had found itself a home amongst the rooms. He’d enacted his punishment for the slander. He sometimes still stopped by just to enjoy the screams. 

He’d always known when a human had stepped foot in Hell, though maybe not immediately, if his attention was elsewhere. But this… he shook his head. If it was a human, someone was cloaking it. Muddling the waters of its passage. 

He growled low in his throat. 

Living humans were the embodiment of chaos. The chaos of Dante’s passing had ushered in a new era of Lilim power. Lilith was adept at capitalizing on upheaval. He had to give her that. 

If it was a human, and he had his doubts… There were many things beyond the boundaries of his realm that could wander in and cause chaos. Humans being just one of them. 

It could be a sibling. He had plenty, some of whom he hadn’t even met. He wouldn’t put it past them to get curious. Or to blindly follow dad’s orders. 

Maybe one of the Endless? Dream’s imprisonment on Earth had certainly given his creations the chance to play. Who’s to say it couldn’t happen again? 

He rustled his wings against his back, folding and unfolding them as he paced. 

The fae were a possibility, as was an overeager denizen of London Below.

And that wasn’t even touching on the realms further afield. The places he didn’t even dare to go. 

The dragon swooped low, tucking its wings as it dove through the canyons. 

He needed to get back to the Ninth Circle. News of Malphas’s murder and Belial’s disappearance would move fast, and he wanted to get ahead of it. 

These dad-damned demons. Belial and this dad-damned murder. 

The dragon arched overhead and disappeared into the clouds. Lucifer glared at the landscape and the empty outcropping. In a rustle of feathers, he vanished, winging his way to the Ninth Circle and his nest of vipers.

* * *

The courtyard was mostly empty. A few armored demons stood at attention under overhangs built into the walls, and three huddled under the trebuchet. Tension rippled in the air. She could feel eyes following her every movement. Something had them spooked. She could probably yell “boo” and the entire fortress would have a heart attack. 

She was pretty proud of the fact that she didn't indulge the urge. 

Strix shuffled next to her while Pudgy peeled off, lumbering into the fortress. Their escort milled around, one eye on the sky. 

Percy, having vanished to who knows where, zipped over the small demon’s head and landed on Ella’s shoulder. He puffed out his chest and bounced from shoulder to her head to shoulder and back again. He churred into her ear and wiggled his way into her hoodie, disappearing from view. 

The whole courtyard watched in terrified fascination. 

Ella smiled and waved. 

She leaned close to Strix and muttered. “You could tell I was alive. Why can’t they?” 

Strix blinked lazily. “Something is wrong.”

“That’s not a lot of information to go off of, buddy.” 

“They are scared.” 

Ella squinted at the surrounding demons. She could feel the fear and tension, but she wasn’t quite sure what the differences were between Lilim and Shedim and how to differentiate them. And reading expressions on a non-human face? Not something she had the hang of yet. 

“Why would they be terrified? The voice?” 

Strix bobbed his head. “Possibly.”

Pudgy scurried back into the courtyard. The tense demons roused and Ella was shunted along in their wake. They ducked into the fortress and hurried through dark corridors lit with guttering lights. 

Their destination was a set of elaborately jeweled doors. Two demons blocked her view, arguing, eyes narrowed, teeth bared and sniping at each other in low tones. 

One looked like a grey tabby attempting to masquerade as a human, while the other was a strange combination of human and lion. He looked like a garbled version of the Beast from the nineties tv show that her mom was obsessed with when she was younger. A man-shaped lion, wearing a flowing robe, tapped a human looking foot and clasped human looking hands with sharp claws on the tips and glared at his companion.

Her brain disconnected from her mouth, and she was surprised to find herself saying, “Oh hey, cat fight. _Meow_.”

The argument screeched to a halt. 

“Um, I totes said that out loud.” The grey tabby demon narrowed its eyes. “And totally didn’t mean to,” Ella finished. 

“ _This_ is the human soul?” 

“Yes, Lord Chamberlain,” Pudgy said, slurping his body into a low bow. “This is the human soul.” 

“You will refer to me as Duke from here on out,” the grey tabby said. He wrinkled his nose and curled his lips back to display sharp canines. “Do not make that mistake again.” 

Pudgy bowed lower and looked dangerously close to toppling as apologies burbled out of his mouth. 

“If we’re done here,” the second cat demon said, he tossed his golden mane over his shoulders in a move that would make Fabio jealous. “We have work to do.”

“You will show some respect,” the Duke cat hissed. 

“You and I have known each other too long, Beleth, for me to start groveling now. Besides, no Harasha has ever bent the knee to their Duke. Now, our king commands and we obey, so let's see to the matter at hand.” 

Beleth’s slitted eyes looked Ella up and down, and he sneered at her. “You are adept at reading death?”

“I’m really not sure what that means.” Ella glanced back at Strix, who was lurking behind her demon escort. He opened his beak and shrugged. 

“In life, when a human expired, you dealt with their death.”

“Oh yeah. I am, um, was a crime scene analyst, or forensic scientist, same thing. Lots of dead people. Loooooots.” 

“She will do,” the lion-demon said. 

The Duke narrowed his eyes. “Do not embarrass me, Pursan.”

The lion-demon, Pursan, smiled brightly and showed his teeth. Way too many teeth. 

Ella gulped. 

Beleth glared. “Make it quick. It would not do to keep the king waiting.” The Duke padded down the corridor, his heavy robes swishing around his feet.

Pursan moved closer now that the Duke was gone and circled her like she was prey. This close, she could see deep scratch marks across his nose. He licked across his sharp teeth. He leaned close and sniffed at her hair. 

Ella yelped and cringed away. 

“What is your name, human?” 

“El-um-Eleanor.” 

“Elumeleanor, we find ourselves in need of your expertise.” 

“Oh, sorry, it’s just, um, Eleanor. _Eleanor Shellstrop_.” Pursan’s lion-ish eyebrows pinched together and Ella cringed. She wasn’t sure what she was doing. Only that she and Strix were deep in a demon fortress and for some reason the Duke of the Fourth Circle needed her expertise with death, whatever that meant. 

She didn’t have long to wait. Pursan pushed open the jeweled doors and Ella stepped back into familiar territory. Strix warbled nervously.

It was a murder. Or at least looked like one. The demon was spread across the floor, blood and viscera drying next to him. 

“Woah. Gnarly.” 

Pursan nodded and tiptoed into the room, avoiding the drying puddles of blood. “We need to know what happened.”

“How does getting murdered in Hell even work? Isn’t this the afterlife? If you die here what happens? And you guys are like, demons, if murder is a thing in Hell, wouldn’t it be common or something? Oh wow, I have so many questions.” 

“Clearly,” Pursan said. “It’s almost like you haven’t been in a Hell loop.” 

“Ohhhhhh. Yeah. My Hell loop was bad. It was… bad. The worst.” 

Pursan raised a furry eyebrow, unconvinced. “Back to the matter at hand. This is Malphas, formerly Duke of the Fourth Circle until his untimely demise. We need to know what happened here.” 

“Okay. Cool.” Ella took a deep breath. “I can do this. I don’t have any of my gear, and it’s really not a good idea to handle dead bodies without gloves, but we can start with just the visuals before moving onto processing the body.” 

Pursan rumbled and one of the demons in the corridor yelped. Footsteps retreated into the distance. 

“Who found the body? Have you started questioning possible witnesses?” Ella asked, crouching down to look at twisted intestines.

“Our King discovered Malphas; he had brought many before him to account for their whereabouts and involvement. He is the one who ordered a thorough examination of the death scene.” 

“So, the Devil was here,” Ella said. Her heart dropped into her stomach. “The real Devil. The actual devil. Satan himself. The Devil. King of Hell. _That guy_.” 

Pursan tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Yes. The Devil. He instated Beleth as Duke and bound him to this circle. Even the souls in their loops would have heard him.” 

Ella’s brain screeched to a halt, retreated into a distant corner of her head, and hung up a Do Not Disturb sign. She gaped at Pursan, uncaring that she resembled a shocked fish with the way her mouth was opening and closing. 

“Th-th- _THAT_ was the Devil?” 

Pursan nodded. “He departed for the Ninth Circle shortly before you arrived.” 

“Oh,” Ella said. She wobbled in her crouch and wanted to fall on her butt and just have a breakdown. But this was a crime scene, and she couldn’t disturb it. That knowledge was too ingrained, even if she thought she was about to faint. 

She’d dealt with way more than she ever expected, basically being flung into Hell and being told to journey through it. She knew the Devil was a thing, and someone she might actually _meet_ , but that was something she hadn’t thought of or planned for outside of Strix fanboying about him and her hazy comparisons with _her_ Lucifer. 

Her Lucifer didn’t have a voice that could rock mountains and scare the pee out of trolls. Although, he scared the pee out of plenty of suspects. She’d seen more than one suspect stagger out of the interrogation room, tears on their faces with a suspicious dark splotch in the crotch area. 

But there was a difference between being the kind of scary that could scare a perp into confessing to a crime and the kind of scary that could cause a hellquake with just their voice. She was _pretty_ sure she would have noticed if Lucifer was actually the Devil. 

Although she’d completely missed the fact that Marcus Pierce was a lying scumbag who hurt Chloe and oh yeah, was the freaking _Sinnerman_. Her boss was a crime lord, and she’d practically shoved a good friend into his arms. It was no wonder Chloe was suspect of her matchmaking skills. 

And then, after Pierce died and Chloe went to Europe, the subject was just… dropped. 

It still burned in the pit of her stomach. 

She hoped Marcus Pierce was rotting in some Hell loop, being tormented for what he’d done. 

It was a petty and vindictive thought, but if she ran into him, she wasn’t going to feel sorry. 

Although she was feeling plenty sorry for the vic sprawled across the floor. 

Ella pulled herself together as best she could, pushed herself upright and tiptoed around the body, looking at the details, the wounds, the blood spatter, and anything that looked disturbed. She was a good forensic scientist. Maybe a little biased in favor of the detectives she liked, so she did what she could to assist with their cases, but her work ethic had always been a point of pride. Even when her personal life was falling apart, and she was slumming into work with unwashed hair and sunglasses, no one had ever been able to say that her work suffered. 

Processing a demonic murder scene in Hell couldn’t be too different. Even though she didn’t have her kit, her techs, or the facilities to run any of the tests she normally did, she could construct some idea of what happened. 

A demon skittered into the room and almost walked into the blood puddle. 

“Don’t disturb the scene!” Ella barked. 

Five eyes set into a scaly face blinked back at her in unison. The demon offered two thin leather gloves in shaking hands. 

“Well, it’s not nitrile, but better than nothing I guess.” She pulled on the soft gloves and clapped her hands together. “Okay. Let's see what we’ve got. Victim is a… male demon, age unknown, but I’m guessing super old?”

Pursan nodded. 

“There’s slashes to the torso and neck.” She ran a gloved finger just over the slash in the neck “I think this was the killing blow.” She traced down to the abdomen. “The gut wound is big, and it appears the guts were pulled out.” She picked up a hand and grimaced at the cut off fingers. “These don’t look like defensive wounds. The palms are unmarked.” 

“It was to silence him. Or to send a message that he was being silenced.” 

Ella scrunched up her face, not quite sure what to make of that. 

Pursan sighed, a great gusty breath, and seemed to sink in on himself. "Malphas stopped speaking—" he waved a hand —"ages ago. I don't quite remember when. The humans who were trickling into Hell had just started living in cities and farming was still a novel concept. Such fun we had in those Hell loops. Malphas’s communication was written, and he developed a language spoken solely with his hands." Pursan chuffed. "He was so delighted when he found a Hell loop with a human that did the same." 

"Okay. So dude spoke with sign language and whoever cut off his fingers was sending a message. So what did Malphas know that they didn't want anyone else finding out? And by cutting his fingers off... wouldn't you be saying hey! This guy knows something, maybe we should dig a little!?"

Pursan tilted his head, and Strix warbled, a long nervous note, from the doorway. "Malphas had a bad habit of insulting his peers and those around him. He had a sharp wit and was singularly observant. He delighted in making the King laugh." 

"So it could have been someone who didn't like being the butt of his jokes." 

"Very possibly." 

Ella lifted the duke's blood stained robe and did a double take as she glanced at his feet. Malphas’s top half was that of a very hairy man, and his bottom half was almost indistinguishable from goat legs. "It really bums me out that I won't be able to present this at the next Forensics Conference. It would be freaking amazing. Forensics in Hell. Oh!" She pulled her hands apart like she was forming a banner. "Hellensics!" Pursan raised a furry eyebrow. "Um. You know, if I wasn't dead." 

She coughed and focused on the body. “Wounds were caused by a blade, some sort of knife from the look of it. Small and curved.” She held up a hand, tucked her fingers except for her index, which she curved into a claw shape. She swiped and tugged towards her, imitating the way the knife would have been used. Percy shifted in her hoodie, and Strix warbled nervously from the door. 

Pursan grumbled under his breath. 

Ella followed the trail of blood spatter. It was darker than she was used to, almost black in composition and congealing as it dried. Already the room was taking on a rather noxious smell that even the open jeweled doors were doing nothing to waft away. A little table was tipped over, two glasses on the floor, and a pitcher upended. Sheets of parchment were coated in blood. 

"I shall miss Malphas," Pursan said. "He was been my Duke since I crawled from the flames." The demon chuckled. "A human once managed to summon him to Earth." Strix chirped and pulled his head into his jacket, clearly frightened. "The human bound Malphas to his control and desired him to throw down the human's enemies. Malphas managed to escape and spent, from the way he told it, a delightful winter tormenting the townsfolk. He particularly liked the pretty girls. He'd sneak up on them as they were brushing their hair. They'd see his reflection in the mirror, and there was Malphas, bent over, asscheeks spread and anus on display." Pursan roared with laughter, holding his hands to his stomach and bending over. "Him Below had to retrieve Malphas personally. He was having such a grand time." 

Ella frowned at a blood soaked tapestry. "Who else was in the room?" 

Pursan drew his eyebrows together. 

"There's two cups. And the way the blood splatter is laid out. It's been disturbed. So it was almost like someone walked through it." Ella tapped a leather covered finger against a blood puddle. "Or fought through it. Plus, the blood over by the table. That's a different color and consistency than the blood by Malphas. So I think there were at least two demons." 

"Belial, the Great General and Commander of the Legions of Hell was in the room with Malphas. Beleth is overseeing the search. But Belial arrived by talisman; the assumption is that he left by talisman as well." 

"Those are like the transporters of Hell right? Kinda like Beam me up, Satan?" 

Pursan narrowed his eyes. "The things you say are nonsensical. Talismans are incredibly rare and always accounted for. Belial, as General, had access whenever he wanted in order to do his job and oversee the legions. Belial arrived. Malphas was in his chambers when Belial joined him." 

"And he left straight from this room?" 

Pursan nodded. 

"If you're planning on murdering someone, and you can just zap yourself anywhere, why not just zap yourself straight into the room and then straight out?" 

"Maybe His Lordship didn't intend to kill the Duke when he first arrived," Strix chimed in. 

"Not a bad point, buddy. So who's doing the investigating?" Pursan and Strix both looked blank. "Okay, in the LAPD I don't normally deal in so much conjecture. I process the scene and hand over my findings to the detective in charge. The detective is the one who puts together a suspect list based on forensic findings, victim history, and possible suspect motives. They follow up on that. So is there like a demon detective squad who'll be showing up and taking over? Demon NCIS or something?" Percy shifted against her neck and wiggled in her hood. He chirped, and she could feel him climbing out. He fluttered off to inspect the room. 

"Shedim are very rarely killed, at least by each other. It's anathema to take away the opportunity to go back to the flames. We have never conducted a murder investigation before, but Him Below ordered it," Pursan replied. He was frowning at Percy. 

"Okay, so the Devil found the body and isn't thrilled one of his Duke's got offed and that the main suspect to do the offing was his General." Ella bit her lip. "Does this sound like a political nightmare to you? ‘Cause it’s sounding that way to me." 

"It's why he did not linger. The Archdukes in the Ninth Circle will be in an uproar, as well the Dukes in other circles. With Belial's whereabouts unknown, they will be on their guard." 

"So it was just Belial and Malphas?" 

"As far as I know."

"If Belial is the perp, why did Malphas just let Belial stab him? The gut wound came first, and his guts were _pulled_ out. He was finished off by the neck wound. If they were sitting at the table, well, it's kinda hard to gut someone, especially low in the belly." 

"What are you getting at, human?" 

"The facts don't add up. So Malphas and Belial are sitting here drinking, chatting, going over paperwork. Maybe they have an argument. Belial grabs a knife and what, topples the table and guts Malphas? Just like that? And Malphas doesn't try to fend him off? You said Malphas has been duke for a really long time. Would he just let someone do that?" 

"No. He would not. Malphas was an adept fighter. One does not hold their position in Hell without being a capable and wily demon." 

“So why didn’t he fight back? It’s weird. Because over by the table, it looks like there was a struggle, but Malphas body shows no signs of one. He’s just laid out, gutted. It’s like he was asleep…” 

Ella blinked. She glanced at the tipped over glasses. Percy was inspecting the shards. He pecked at one and squawked, ruffling his feathers. Strix shuffled his feet in the doorway. “Are there poisons that work on demons? That might not be noticeable when ingested but put them to sleep?”

“This is Hell. Everything is poison, even our King.” 

“So. I’m gonna take that as a yes.” She shooed Percy away from the glasses and gingerly picked up one . “Is there any way to test this for poison?” 

“Yes. There are ways. Poison is a speciality of any decent Harasha.” 

“Which would be you?” 

“I am the Harasha of Tura and the Fourth Circle. I am the keeper of its lore and in charge of spells and scrying.”

“You’re a wizard!?” 

“Is that the human term for such things? Wizard?” 

“Probably, maybe. I mean… humans don’t really have wizards, they only exist in stories. They’re kind of like the dude version of witches I guess, but without all the scapegoating and oppression.” 

“Indeed. I am familiar with witches, although very few reside in Hell.” 

“Okay. That’s officially awesome. Please tell me that all the assholes that burned and hung them are down here. _Please-please-please_.” 

A lazy smile spread across Pursan’s face. “We count many of their number as residents.” 

“Yes!” Ella crowed. “Although, maybe I shouldn’t be happy people are in Hell. I mean, there’s a few I totally want to see rot, but—um—yeah.” She shuffled her feet, uncomfortable and wondering what it meant for her that she was so eager to see people suffer. Specific people, but the point stood. 

“Perhaps we should see to the matter at hand.” 

Ella looked back at the crime scene and grimaced. “Lets go get the Devil off our backs.”

* * *

Lucifer stepped into the throne room and furled his wings. A wall of fire lit around the perimeter. 

The Throne consisted of two seats. The High Seat was the basalt column that towered over the surface of the Ninth Level. A symbol of Lucifer’s power and a beacon for all. A reminder that their King was in residence. 

The second was the Low Seat. This one was buried deep in the volcanic rock of the Ninth Circle. The throne room was large, an enormous cavern carved out by molten lava when Hell first formed. The room was polished to a shine, and could hold a multitude. Here, in the throne room, Lucifer could accept petitioners to the crown, deal with his dukes, and hold court. The low seat was situated on a dais of its own, so he was always above his demons. But it wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as the High Seat.

What was his father thinking with such a terrible design?

The two thrones were aligned with each other. One directly below the other. And below even them was the heart of Hell, the infernal flames themselves. Site of Lucifer’s immolation and his crowning as the King of Hell. 

It was the birthplace of the Shedim and the location of Hell’s most important forge. 

Together, the Flames, the Low Seat, and the High Seat made up the King’s Seat. 

A demon, one of the many throne room attendants, appeared at the doorway and bowed low. 

“Bring me Skhistos,” Lucifer commanded. 

The demon bowed low again and left. 

Lucifer leaned back in the throne and crossed his left leg over his right. He’d much rather be back in the Fourth Circle. He trusted Beleth to find some poor damned soul that would be able to process the scene, Dad only knows how many police officers Hell was drowning in. Whatever conclusion they came to, it wouldn’t be the same as if Ella was doing the work. Or if Chloe was there to look for clues. 

He smiled at the brief mental image of Ella crouched down beside Malphas body, bagging and tagging evidence and enthusing about demon anatomy. If Chloe were there, she’d be tapping her foot, brow furrowed, looking for clues and putting together theories. 

Solving murders wasn’t nearly as fun without his partner. 

It was a pleasant dream. Having Chloe down here though, would shatter him. Having any of them down here was something he never wanted to see. 

Skhistos stopped and bowed low. Lucifer nodded, gesturing for him to come closer. 

The archduke was nervous, that much was clear. With the cavernous throne room empty of courtiers and only Lucifer on the Low Seat, it was bound to make any self respecting demon nervous. 

Skhistos kneeled before the throne, head bowed, and hands gripping the leather of his trousers where they rested against his thighs. 

“How did you know Belial went to the Fourth Circle?” Lucifer asked. 

“My King,” Skhistos replied, a nervous quaver running through his gravely voice. “I received a crow from the Fourth Circle when Belial arrived. I like to be kept apprised of the General’s surprise inspections. The state of our legions is of the utmost concern. We would not want to disappoint your glorious person.”

Lucifer drummed his fingers on the side of the chair. “And yet the Fourth Circle has management problems. Shipments not being sent, quotas not being met. One would think you'd keep your King informed of that as well. ” 

Skhistos clenched his hands. 

“Or maybe Malphas didn’t tell you everything.” 

“My King, if it’s change you want to see, I will push Malphas for solutions and we will ensure the problem is rectified.”

“Yes, _bit_ of a problem there. Malphas is dead.” 

Skhistos blinked. His mouth gaped. He licked his craggy lips. He made no noise. 

Lucifer smiled—dark and dangerous. “Do tell me everything you know about why Malphas was murdered and what part Belial played.” 

And so it went. The protestations, the disbelief, the groveling. 

It was almost entertaining to watch an Archduke beg and plead, but in the end Shkistos was practically worthless. He knew little about Belial’s intentions and was disgustingly ill informed about what was going on in the Fourth Circle. 

He was a true politician to his core, an empty dragon scale suit, as it were.

Lucifer waved him away, annoyed and irritated. 

The next archduke walked in like a recalcitrant child called to the principal's office. Not that Lucifer had any experience with that, but there was that one Misty Canyon’s porn that was quite the delight in the student/teacher front, and he’d even participated in some role play himself at Lux.

Not that he had any desire to do so with the current archduke standing in front of him. Pus oozed from a lower jaw that consisted of exposed meat and bone. It dripped onto the black stone floor. Lucifer idly counted the drops as the archduke groveled. 

Again and again an archduke stood before him with nothing to offer. 

Ver bowed low and kneeled before him. Perfect and pale and implacable. She was the most useful, having worked with Belial on a number of projects in the past. But like the others, had little to offer. 

Another Archduke, Lucifer knew his name but wasn’t particularly inclined to recall it, like usual, only had gossip to offer up. All three of the Archduke’s mouths curved into self satisfied smiles as he recounted a recent public fight Belial and Lilith had engaged in. 

Not anything out of the ordinary. Belial and Lilith were always fighting, and always making up in the most public of ways. Lucifer had learned long ago to ignore it, even if the making up was mildly diverting voyeurism. 

He waved the demon away and settled in to hear the next account. 

If only he could pull desires out of demons like he could humans. But there was that pesky lack of a soul to contend with. He was their King, and he could compel them to speak, as they were under his power and influence, but not like human beings were. He could ask a demon what it desired until he was blue in the face, and it would do no good. 

If he could get his demons to voice their desires, like he could humans, he may already have the answers he was looking for. Not that it helped much on Earth. One was as likely to get cat sanctuaries as an answer instead of a murder confession. 

“Enough,” Lucifer said, interrupting the complaints about the quality of ore that had recently been delivered. “I’ve heard enough.” 

The Archduke bowed and exited. 

The next demon to prostrate himself before the throne was Orobas, Harasha of the Ninth Circle. He pressed his forehead to the floor, his midnight black body stretched and taut. His robes were the deepest blue and gold glittered, dripping off him like a waterfall of precious metals. 

Lucifer tilted his head. “What have you heard?” 

“Many things, my King. But you ask after Malphas and Belial.” 

“Rumors are flying I see.” 

Orobas lifted his head. His blue eyes glittered. “One cannot help but hear when the Ninth Circle is in such an uproar. The magics are ill aligned.” 

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “Oh come now. Don’t leave me in suspense. All these machinations, you really must tell me.” 

“Lilith has been tinkering where she shouldn’t.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Yes, she is rather overly suspicious. I’m rather shocked she hasn’t come storming in yet, demanding to know where Belial is.” 

Orobas clasped his hands. His jewelry tinkled as he moved. “I have watched her, My King.” 

“Oh, perverted. I didn’t know you had it in you.” 

“She possesses, in her rooms, a Hell loop like none other. Modified from its original purpose. She has been tampering, and Belial noticed.”

“Now this is getting interesting. What kind of Hell loop?” 

Orobas shook his head. The gold bands on his swept back horns caught the light from the fire and shimmered for a brief moment. 

“She is tampering with magics she should not touch.” Orobas voice lowered. “During your absence, I would find her in this very room, walking the floor and muttering incantations to herself. I know not the inner workings of her mind. But if Belial tried to stop her, there is no telling where this would end.” 

“That is quite the accusation. Why not bring it up sooner? I seem to have courtiers keeping everything from me these days. I find I don’t care for it.” The throne room rattled with the force of Lucifer’s banked anger. 

Orobas was unmoved. “I have no proof, My King. I only know what whispers I’ve heard, and Belial and Lilith are loud.”

Lucifer hummed. “Yes, Belial always was a screamer.” He paused. “Anything else you can think of? Any more random gossip ping ponging around your skull that I should know about?”

“No, My King. Only that Lilith has involved herself in things she never should have touched.” 

“Story of Lilith’s life,” Lucifer muttered. 

He waved away the Harasha and Orobas backed out of the room, repeating his bows. He’d always been an odd duck, that one. In any other situation, the two of them may have gotten along, been friends even. Orobas was devoted to his appearance in a way few demons could even aspire to. Although his taste left something to be desired. He may have fancied himself the height of Hellish fashion, but Lucifer rather thought he looked like a demonic Mr. T. 

He lounged back in his throne and sighed. All roads seemed to lead to Lilith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic started out as my NaNoWriMo offering and just kinda blew up on me. It's well beyond 50k, so there's quite a bit more to go. There were so many lovely comments about Lucifer and Ella meeting. I may have gulped, looked at my next chapter and quaked in my shoes. I promise they're gonna meet and there is gonna be a reveal, but I can't help it, I love a good missed connection. 
> 
> Harasha is, from what I understand, an Aramaic word for "Enchanter". 
> 
> Malphas shenanigans on Earth are based on an [old woodcut](https://imgur.com/gallery/IAi6E9C) that had me laughing.


	10. The heavens created, and gave who should guide them

Pursan ducked under a low doorway and threaded his way through rough hewn rooms, Ella and Strix following closely. They marched down a long hallway, back out to the open courtyard, and into the largest of the spindly towers. Strix trotted after Pursan like it was no big deal, while Ella lagged behind, huffing and puffing her way up the spiral staircase. Percy chirped with each step she took, a small feathery coach. 

Strix looked back from time to time and warbled his concern. 

When she got back to Earth, her calves were going to be the envy of the Precinct.

She found Strix and Pursan waiting for her in a large room stuffed to the gills with books. There was an enormous desk laden with books and covered in stacks of parchment. A hammock was strung up by one window, held in place by sturdy bookcases that groaned under the weight of their contents. A skull from a creature with too many eye sockets and too many horns acted as a paperweight on the desk. Jars full of strange herbs and strange liquids were tucked around the room. It was one of the most comfortable rooms Ella had ever been in and the most disturbing all at the same time. 

Percy flitted off her shoulder and alighted on the skull. He fluffed out his feathers and hunkered down for a long and thorough preening session. 

Ella threw herself into a wooden chair, the possibly poisoned glass still in one gloved hand, and stretched her feet out in front of her, wiggling her toes and enjoying the stretch through her muscles. Sitting was a relief after all the stairs, and she didn’t intend to move for some time.

“Now,” Pursan said. “Let us see what we are dealing with.” He took the broken glass from her hands and moved through the room, collecting materials and piling them up on the already laden desk. 

“Sweet digs. Being Harasha doesn’t seem to be too bad, on the demon scale of things. Not that I know much about demons.” Strix looked at her with wide panicked eyes. “On account of being dead and all. _Demons_ , man.” She cringed; her tendency to babble had gotten her into trouble before and this could go south, or even more south, faster than she’d like. 

Pursan added something noxious to a polished quartz cauldron that bubbled cheerfully. “It’s been some time since a living human has journeyed,” he said. He crushed up the glass and dropped it into the cauldron. The mixture started hissing and spitting. 

“Oh hey, living.” Ella laughed—high pitched and slightly maniacal. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been in my Hell loop, being tortured. You know how it is.”

Pursan hmmmed deep in his throat and stirred the angry mixture with a long, spindly spoon. “I am not so easily deceived, and Beleth is no fool. You are fortunate he was distracted.” 

“So what would have happened if he wasn’t distracted?” 

“You would be treated as an honored guest and given a tour of Hell much different than the one your companion has been showing you.” Strix warbled through his coat. His head was tucked so far into his jacket that Ella couldn’t even see his beak.

Ella narrowed her eyes. “You say that like it's a bad thing.” 

Pursan grumbled and began cutting up an eyeball. “Living humans have journeyed through Hell since the damned began residing here. The Harashas have done much in the way of theorizing about why that is.” 

“I’m sensing a theory,” Ella replied, leaning forward. Even Percy looked up from his preening. 

“I am a scholar first and foremost. Before possessions and summoning were banned, I ventured up to Earth from time to time. But that was, in human terms, many centuries ago.” He raised a furry eyebrow. “Of course I have a theory.” 

“You gotta share, don't leave me hanging” 

“You are here so you can bring word back to the living of what awaits them should they commit grievous sins and allow their guilt to subsume them.”

“Whoa. So I’m down here so I really can start a blog when I get home. Or the weirdest Wobble channel anyone has ever seen.” Ella paused. “Wait, it definitely won’t be the weirdest. I’ve seen some freaky stuff flying around on the interwebs; I’ve even contributed to some of the freaky stuff. You know, if you consider looners weird.” 

“You were Chosen to be a warning and deterrent. It’s why shortcuts are not open to you.” Pursan slid the chopped up eyeball into the angry mixture. It turned a putrid shade of green. 

“So there are rules?”

“The King is not fond of human travelers in his realm. He sees them as burdens foisted upon him by Him Above. They bring slanderous lies back to Earth and cause chaos and upheaval. But since they are chosen, there are edicts that they are to be assisted in their journey.” 

“Satan wants me out of his horns, huh?”

Strix made worried noises from inside his coat.

“Dante soured him more than most. It is understandable. The man was miserable.” 

"You knew Dante?"

Pursan’s lips drew back in a silent snarl. "Yes. I knew and advised him as he began his journey. He was a skittish, nervous man. He wept his way through Hell and would not acknowledge his guide." 

"His guide? You mean Virgil? Dude, that's all he talked about in that poem. How he and Virgil were BFF's and how he basically went through Hell being all super into the gossip of who was being tortured and how." Although thinking about it, she’d been in enough Hell loops that it was pretty much the same thing. Wasn’t she just perving on other people’s torment every time she stepped inside one? And all so she could bring the bad word back to Earth? 

She'd read the Divine Comedy in high school and hadn't thought much of it at the time. Some of the imagery had been cool, but going through Hell to gleefully recount who was burning for all eternity, or pushing rocks or whatever, hadn't sat well with her then, and it still didn't sit well with her now that she was following in Dante's footsteps.

“His guide was a starling that went unnamed while he was in Hell.” Pursan wrinkled his broad nose. “A Lilim Archduke accompanied him and ensured that Dante saw what the Lilim wanted him to see.” 

"No one likes Dante down here do they?" 

“Dante returned to Earth and spread falsehoods and lies. Those did not go over well with Him Below. His rage over Dante's slander is legendary."

"So is the Devil really a three headed creature frozen in a lake?"

Strix clacked his beak three times. Hard. Ella looked over her shoulder. He was glaring at her, yellow eyes furious. Pursan huffed, clearly disappointed. His expression was one she’d seen on her grandmother when she'd followed her brothers into trouble. She hadn't expected to see it on a weird lion-man in Hell. "Okay, so from the looks on your faces, I'm going to guess that was a totally off-base question, and I should have known better." 

Strix thrummed deep in his throat. 

Pursan sighed and tipped the contents of the cauldron into an elaborate gold chalice. "Him Below was away from Hell when Dante journeyed. Lilith was consolidating her power at the time, moving her children into positions of responsibility, and she saw Dante as an opportunity that wasn’t to be wasted. It was a gamble to take advantage of the chaos Dante caused, but Lilith somehow managed it. I still can't fathom what went wrong that Dante thought that dumb brute was the King of Hell." 

"Shenanigans," Ella said. 

Pursan swirled the angry liquid in the chalice like it was a fine glass of wine. 

"One way of putting it, but yes. Lilith has her own agenda.”

“Is that why you sounded like Strix showing me around was better than the official welcome wagon?”

“I think it would be a welcome change for Lilith to not be meddling in your journey. It’s time for a new perspective.”

“You are _salty_ , my man.” 

Pursan rolled his eyes and quaffed the liquid in the chalice. 

Ella lurched out of her seat and reached out. “Holy shit, Pursan, that could be poison!” 

Pursan set the chalice down, smacked his lips, and smiled. “That was rather the point, human. And you are correct. There was poison in the drinks.”

“And why aren’t you—?”

“The process renders the poison inert but detectable through taste.”

Ella laughed “I guess you chose… wisely.” She perked up. “I’m totally going to pitch some screenwriters I know on Demon Crime Scene Investigators. The crime genre could use some mixing up. Throw some crazy demon mischief in, and I think we’ll have a hit on our hands. Just... you know, gotta get home first, and Mineos told me that the only way out is through.”

"Mineos is correct. For one who is on a journey, the only way out is to keep going forward. You must reach the King’s Seat in order to leave."

"So is there like a trap door? When the Devil falls asleep do I like... sneak out or something? Or do I need to ask Satan for help?” Ella crossed her legs and picked at the bottom of her shoe as it started to come unglued from the canvas. "You guys sure aren't asking much. Ella, go walk through Hell and oh yeah, ask Satan for a ride home. It's like calling an Uber... Except it's the Devil. And not like your buddy Lucifer the Devil. The actual literal devil because he's a fallen angel." She laughed, and it sounded a tinge maniacal in her ears. "Hey Satan, wanna give a girl a lift? My abuelita is gonna lose her shit. Do you know how much church I’m going to go to after this? Not many people can say they’ve met the Devil.”

“Dante departed Hell without ever encountering Him Below,” Pursan pointed out. “You arrived via a glyph, and its mirror is carved into the base of the High Seat. You need only find the glyph.”

Ella blew out a frustrated breath. “ _That’s all_?”

“The Devil might surprise you,” Pursan said. “He is rarely what people expect, but Lilith, she I would avoid. Now come, we have a report to write, and I will read the tiles for you before you depart.”

* * *

Ella squinted at the jar of eyeballs on Pursan’s desk. The eyeballs squinted back. She blinked, slow and exaggerated. The eyeballs blinked back. 

Strix hunched behind her although his long neck stretched over Ella’s head as he watched Pursan scratch away at a piece of parchment. Writing up the report and Ella’s findings for the actual, real-life, not-a-joke Devil. 

Lucifer would be so proud. 

Too bad no one was going to believe her. Maybe instead of a blog she should figure out how to write young adult books? The main character goes on a quest through Hell and has to follow in Dante’s footsteps in order to get out. She could make that work, and it’s not like people would think she was crazy. Dante got away with it in his poem, and people thought he was just being metaphorical. 

She needed to take a page out of Lucifer’s book and embrace the metaphors. 

Pursan grumbled to himself. Ella watched him idly as she tried to imagine what if her Lucifer, the one she hadn’t seen for three years, and the Devil were the same person… individual… being… angel… _whatever_. 

She’d been so wrong about Marcus Pierce. She’d looked up to him, thought he was amazing, and he’d betrayed them all. She’d even been wrong about the precinct. She thought the LAPD would own up to having a mob boss in its ranks and instead they’d spun lie after lie to the press. She overlooked it, because she needed the job, and she had friends at the precinct, but they’d covered it up. 

And admitting she was wrong about Marcus Pierce and the LAPD… maybe her Lucifer was the Lucifer. It opened up a black pit in her stomach. She’d have misread someone again. She trusted Lucifer, she missed him, she wanted good things for him. But admitting he was the Devil, believing that? What did that say about her that she could befriend the Prince of Lies so easily? 

She shook her head; the facts didn’t add up. There was too much evidence against it. From the way Strix talked, Lucifer had been in Hell for centuries, and she just couldn’t see fussy, gregarious, larger than life, and complete horndog Lucifer Morningstar the club owner, lording over the damned. And that voice… She shuddered. Who was Ella Lopez to someone who could shake Hell with their voice alone?

She was unimportant and yet, somehow, she’d been chosen to take a tour through Hell.

Pursan whistled, and Ella jerked upright from where she was slumped on the desk. The eyeballs whirled around in the jar and glared. 

A black bird flew in the open window. It landed on the desk and cawed. Percy untucked his head from his wing on his skull perch and chattered at the new arrival. 

Ella’s knowledge of birds basically extended to the ones that visited her abuelita’s bird feeder and the local flock of crows heading to their nighttime roost just as she was commuting home. This bird would fit right in with the crows from the looks of him. He tilted his head and cawed. She braced herself for the inevitable fire breathing or for its feathers to be knives or something else utterly hellish. 

Pursan rolled up the parchment and tied it with string. He offered the package to the bird with instructions to bring it to Harasha Orobas. Taking the loop of string in its beak, the crow cawed, glared at Percy, and fluttered out of the window. 

“Excellent,” Pursan said. He clapped his hands together. “That task is done; onto the next. I promised you a tile reading.” He pulled a black lacquered box out from under his desk. Red runes, the same as the writing in the report, were engraved on each bone white rectangular tile. He turned the black box towards Ella. Red tiles with black runes were stacked inside. 

Strix warbled and shuffled closer, even though his head and neck were still extended over Pursan’s desk.

“Something of an interest, have you?” Pursan asked, laying out the white tiles.

“The tiles were read for me once in Dis.” The feather’s off Strix’s face puffed up. 

“Is this like a tarot card reading?” Ella asked. She leaned forward and looked over the tiles. Pursan had laid them out in the shape of a five pointed star. Each tile touched its neighbor to form interconnected lines. 

She owned a tarot deck of her own. She’d ordered it on a whim after a friend convinced her to get a reading done. It was still sitting at the bottom of her underwear drawer, and any time her parents visited she was convinced her mom was going to find it. That was a bawling out she wasn’t looking forward to.

“ _Tarot_ ,” Pursan repeated, there was a note of disdain in his voice. “The art of divination was imparted to humanity by the Shedim long ago, when humanity first learned to summon demons for the knowledge they could impart. Divination on Earth is only a shade compared to divination in Hell. On Earth it is… guessing. The energies are muddled. In Hell, you are told truths, although those truths may be difficult to discern.”

“My Abuelita is convinced that tarot is the work of the Devil and anyone who practices it is worshiping Satan. She’s going to lose her mind when she finds out that demons taught it to humanity.” Ella narrowed her eyes at Pursan. “Hell isn’t what I expected,” she said. “I’ve met a few demons by now and you guys are not as evil as people like to make out. I guess there’s the torture and torment, but you guys,” she waved her hand at Strix and Puran, “have helped more than anything else.” 

Strix looked down at her with narrowed yellow eyes, clacked his beak, and hissed. Ella beamed up at him. 

Pursan settled into his chair and huffed. “Quite the insult to call a demon helpful. Down here the currency of the realm is deals. You helped me complete a task, and I will help you. I’m sure your friend here thinks similarly.” He gestured to the red tiles in the box. “Pick out five tiles. Set them on top of the white tiles. Ensure that at least one tile is on each spoke of the star. There is no starting point. Place them where the fire in your heart tells you.”

Ella tilted her head. “So wherever I want?”

Pursan nodded. “Yes. Place them on the tiles that call to you.” 

She nodded and picked a tile out of the box. The tile was smooth, and the runes on the top were starting to fade away from the wear and tear of being handled. They felt like ivory, or what she thought ivory would feel like. Killing elephants was a big no-no in Ella’s book, but she was certain that if something in Hell had ivory, she definitely didn’t want to meet it. The runes were made up of squiggles and circles and was unlike anything she’d seen before, or at least, not even remotely close to the Nordic runes she’d seen in museums and on various tv shows. 

The white tiles gleaned back at her, the black runes on their circular faces not nearly as worn as the red tiles. She placed a red tile on the tip of one of the points. She reached for another and placed it halfway down another point. 

“What is evil?” Pursan asked. 

Ella placed another rune on a tile “What do you mean?”

“What do you think evil is?” he asked again. 

She looked up from the red tiles she was placing around the pentagram. Pursan, Strix, and Percy were all looking at her. 

She picked up another tile. Pursan lifted his eyebrows. “My Priest talked about evil in church, and I’ve seen evil things happen to people. For a while I wondered why God let those things happen.” She sighed. “I never really reconciled the evil part, but if humans have free will then we can also hurt each other and do awful horrible things. So I guess… evil is being a bad person, doing bad things, and having no remorse over it.” 

Pursan rumbled deep in his chest, but didn’t reply.

“I thought… I thought I knew what evil was. That when I saw it, I would know it. I examine crime scenes for a living. I compartmentalize you know? For example, I thought the world of my boss and then it turns out he was a crime lord known as the _Sinnerman_ , and he killed a friend because she was investigating him. And there I was singing his praises and making compliment boxes. But what he did… that was evil. He took advantage of me and my friends. He was even engaged to my friend, and she didn’t know, and... I pushed them together. I told her what a great guy he was. I may not have known who he was, but the signs were there that something was off.” Ella sniffed and wiped at her eyes. She pulled another tile from the box. “People do horrible stuff all the time. I did some horrible things. We grew up poor, my brothers were always in trouble for one thing or another, and I was tired of people thinking I was crazy or just ignoring me because I was the youngest. So I did what they did: I stole cars, picked locks, counted cards; I’ve done drugs, and I slept with someone I shouldn’t have.” She looked up at Pursan with wide eyes. “Is that why I’m in Hell? Because I’ve done evil things?”

Pursan tilted his head. “You are in Hell because you were chosen. Why you were chosen, why _anyone_ was chosen, we do not know.” He gestured to the books behind him. “There’s been some debate amongst the Harashas about the living humans who have walked through Hell. We’ve had many arguments.” He chuckled, “Orobas was stabbed once over it. Although I think that was well deserved. He is quite a boor. All I can say is that humans send themselves here through their own guilt. If you die feeling guilty, Hell awaits to ensure the guilty are punished.” 

“There was a monk, in the second circle, who was in Hell because he felt guilty about loving another man. That’s not evil. He loved someone, and now he’s suffering because of it. But he’s not evil.” 

“The human perception of evil has shifted over the course of your history. It’s really rather interesting to see what humans doom themselves for. There are some sins we hardly ever see amongst the newer souls, and others… the sins aren’t anything a human from ages ago would have batted an eye about. We do not determine if a soul goes to Him Above or Him Below. It’s free will, as you mentioned previously. But that free will leads to consequences.” 

Ella placed the last red tile down and sat back. Pursan leaned forward, his eyes roving over the tiles. 

“It’s a crummy system,” Ella said. The squiggled rune on the last tile almost looked like a frown. She frowned back at it. “So you’re saying… does this mean that demons… you aren’t good or evil? You simply… _are_?”

Pursan’s eyes slid closed as his elegant hands made short work of the tiles. He placed each red tile next to its white counterpart. He ran the tips of his fingers over the tile pairs, touching each one. When he reached the last two tiles, he opened his eyes and picked them up. 

“The biggest influence on Hell is the Devil. The second biggest influence is humanity. We are inundated with humans, and those humans bring their sins, their fear, their guilt, their anger, and all their expectations for the afterlife with them. If a human expects damnation to be eternal torture, demons see to it that they get what they desire. Demons are neither good nor evil, and that seems to be true for humans, but we are influenced by those around us. Is it no surprise that demons are perceived as evil when the humans populating our realm are also perceived that way?”

Ella glanced over at Strix and Percy. Percy had gone back to sleep, his head tucked under his wing, but Strix was watching her with wide, yellow eyes. All his attention focused on her. “So,” Ella said. “It’s kinda like when I was growing up. We were poor and hispanic, and it felt like the entire world was against us, and my brother’s influences weren’t all that great. So of course they stole cars and raced and all this other stuff. And I thought it was okay, because if my brothers did it, it had to be fine. That doesn’t make me evil, or make them evil, it just makes me a person.” 

Pursan smiled. “We are all striving for something more. Humans simply have the benefit of being given a chance.” 

“You said that demons are influenced by two things. But you’ve only told me about the second.” 

“Ah, yes. The Devil.” Ella tilted her head and tapped her fingers on the desk. Pursan nodded at Strix, “Has your friend told you Hell’s creation story in its entirety?”

Ella nodded. 

“It is told that Lucifer was Him Above’s brightest and most beloved angel. When he was cast down, and Hell was created from the Inferno of his fall, he was bound to the realm and to the creatures that came from it. All of Lucifer’s rage, pain, and anger mixed with the infernal flames and became part of the essence of the Shedim. So the King goes, so goes Hell.” Pursan’s eyebrows narrowed, and he shook his mane. “His absence from Hell, when he’s departed in the past, has left the realm in ruin. It’s only when the King is at ease, that Hell rests.” 

“Wow,” Ella replied. The story Strix had told her of Hell’s creation was intense, but this was something else. The Devil and Hell wrapped up in each other with Hell reflecting the Devil’s moods. That was… something. “So does this mean Hell really could freeze over?” she blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

Pursan frowned. “Unlikely, but one never knows what mood the Devil will be in. It could happen. He tapped the topmost point of the star. “Each point represents a foundational tenet of Shedim life: Fire, Inferno, Forge, Quench, and Spark.” His fingers drifted along the tiles. “The tiles are ideas, or concepts. The location of the tile matters - where it’s placed along the pentagram and what point it resides on. The two tiles together, red and white, and their location combine to give some idea of your origin, journey, future, adversity, and state of mind.” 

He set his fingers on the tile that was the top of the point directly across from Ella. Pursan examined her tiles without moving them. She’d set a red tile towards the bottom on the left side of the star.

“This point is Fire. It’s the originator of all things,” Pursan said. He tapped the red tile. “Flame.” 

“Fire and the flame. Where you came from. Your flame mates as it were, or the human equivalent. I believe you call them _families_.” He said the last word as if it were alien to him, which now that Ella thought about it, it probably was. “The ties of flame define you. These connections matter.” 

Pursan handed her the red flame tile. “Keep that. Hold it close.” 

Ella nodded. She closed her hand into a fist, the tile cool and comforting in her palm. Flame. Family. It made her miss her Abuelita and her stupid dumbass brothers. 

“The tile you placed Flame on, is Below.” He tapped the white tile. “Placed at the base of the star. Below has many meanings. It could represent the loss of yourself in your family.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Their problems become your problems and you lose sight of yourself. Conversely this could have a more literal meaning. Below as in Hell itself. So it may be that a family member of yours is in Hell.” Pursan hummed. “Below is at the base of the star, but also five tiles from the point. You have five flame mates.”

“Pretty sure I only have four brothers, but all still alive, as far as I know, or they’d better be. If one of them is down here, I’m gonna whip their ass and drag that _pendejo_ back to Earth with me.”

Strix warbled nervously.

Ella’s eyes widened, and she clutched the Flame tile to her chest. “Oh my god. Do I have a secret brother my parents didn’t tell me about!? My dad is older than my mom, it’s possible. Oh _god_. Do I have to find him? What happens if I do?” She gasped. “Did I have a twin that I ate in the womb? I totally did, didn’t I? I absorbed my twin and they were destined to be evil and went to Hell! Did I save the world through unintended twin cannibalism?” Pursan ignored her. “Or maybe my brothers are in Hell on Earth because I’m missing and they’re freaking out!”

Percy untucked his head from his wing and clucked at her. 

Pursan pointed to the next point of the star, moving counter clockwise. “Forge. This point is your journey. For the Shedim, it's the journey from the flames of creation to the flames of immolation, as they are one and the same. For a living human in Hell, it is their journey from the time they enter to the time they leave.” Pursan grinned, his teeth sharp and glinting in the dim light of the tower. “I attempted to divine for a damned soul once. It would not work. Their story was finished.”

He touched the red tile. “Phalanx.” And then the white tile “Star.” Pursan harrumphed and settled deeper into his chair. “Star. Interesting. Terribly controversial this tile.” Ella raised her eyebrows. Pursan gestured at the tiles. “Phalanx is an advance, at least in relation to the Forge point. Advancing through the journey. But the Star. That tile can have many meanings.” Pursan placed his hands palm down on the desk and stared at Ella. “Is it true that on Earth there are many stars?”

“Yeah, billions and billions. Not that you can really tell from Los Angeles, the light pollution is bad. But if you get out somewhere more remote, the sky is full of them. Why?”

“In Hell, there is only one star.”

“Lucifer.” Ella said. She frowned. This was verging into territory where she couldn’t help but think of Lucifer in Lux, holding court in a sea of admirers. All the patrons drawn to him for one reason or another. The brightest thing in there. It was an image that meshed far too well with the picture Pursan was painting, ruined by other images: Lucifer taking dick pics with her camera. Lucifer hiding out in the forensics office to avoid paperwork. Lucifer telling her all his extravagant and somewhat ridiculous sex stories. She tried to think of him down here, regaling demons with exploits. An image of worship, desire, and torture.

“Yes. Demons know of Earth stars from the stories brought back due to summoning or possession, and from the Hell loops humans inhabit. But there are no stars in Hell other than the Angel who lit them in the first place.” He tapped the tile. “Many demons take this tile to mean that they will encounter Him Below or be near him, be it a posting in the Ninth Circle or a chance encounter. It’s considered a great honor to be in his presence. The two tiles together might infer that your journey will bring you to the Morning Star.” 

Ella raised her eyebrows. “So the journey is gonna be rough, but if I keep going, I get to meet the Devil at the end?” She stopped. “Wow. There's a sentence I never thought I’d say.” 

“There is a secondary meaning to the star tile. It’s one of optimism. Hell was created through the fall and the flames. Creation as an act of destruction.” 

Ella attempted a smile. It ended up being more of a flash of teeth through a grimace. “So I’m going to face hardship, but I should be happy about it?”

“You are already,” Strix said. Ella looked at him. “You have befriended me and have made light of the troubles we have encountered. I do not know much of humanity outside of the Hell loops, but I do not think many would venture forth with such fortitude.”

Ella managed a wobbly smile. “Must be my sunny disposition. Oh, A sun is a star.” She shot finger guns at Strix. He fluffed his facial disk out and then flattened it against his head. He clacked his beak once. 

Pursan huffed. “You’ve placed these tiles on the point of the star. Your journey will be long. There are no shortcuts.” 

Pursan pointed to the next point. “Quench. This is the hardening process. When a weapon is crafted, it must be quenched. Only then will it harden and cool so it can be used. The previous point spoke of your physical journey, but quench is the adversity that hones you.” 

He pointed at the white tile “Abyss. This tile is loneliness and isolation. The never ending void. Darkness.” Ella tightened her fist around the Flame tile. “Hell is darkness, but there is also light. The light of the fire. The fanning of the flames. Demons are not creatures of isolation. We wither away when not with each other. Like a small flame being extinguished. One of the worst things that can happen to a demon is to be isolated. The Abyss is not a tile the demons view with pleasure. It’s an omen of tragedy and loss. Of being cut off from the flame.” 

“What does that mean for me?” Ella asked. “I’m not a demon.” 

“No,” Pursan replied. “But the Flame guides you. You may not be a demon but you are also not a creature built for loneliness or isolation.” He smiled. It was a gentle smile and looked strange on his demonic face, as if he weren’t built for kinder feelings. “You have your fierce Percy.” The bird warbled from underneath his wing. “And a friend in Strix.” He nodded at the demon lurking behind her. “And your family means everything to you. You find family wherever you go.” 

Ella nodded, thinking of Chloe and Trixie. Dan and Linda, Charlie, Amenadiel… and Lucifer.

“This tile does not bode well,” Pursan shook his head. “But on the Quench point, well, all Shedim life is tied to strife and immolation. You do not progress if you do not suffer. It is how we overcome that suffering that defines us.” 

He tapped the red tile. “Crown.” Pursan shifted in his chair while Strix cooed nervously behind her. “Power at the highest levels. On the Quench point it can mean that your difficulties will come not from Hell itself but from those in power.” 

“Like the Devil?”

“Maybe,” Pursan ran a hand through his mane. “The Crown is more than just the Devil. He is King, and the crown is his, but there is an Infernal Aristocracy that surrounds him. The Archdukes in the Ninth Circle. The Dukes in their respective Circles. Underneath those there are Viscounts, Marquises, Counts, Harashas, and the like. It is rather complicated, but what really matters is access to the King.” He tapped the Crown tile again. “This speaks more to power that orders chaos.” 

Ella gulped. Strix shuffled behind her.

“You are chaos itself. A living human in Hell. Your very presence upends our way of life. It’s been this way for every living human that’s ventured through our world. Your passing leaves us irrevocably changed. What that change will be, we do not know until after your departure. But I find it plausible that the powers that be, the powers that oversee the ruling of Hell… well, they might have something to say about that.” 

“I don’t want to cause problems. I just want to go home.” 

“Of course you do. You are an in-between creature and without your Percy to buffer you, Hell itself would try to make you fit.”

“What does that mean?” Ella sat up straight, alarmed. She tightened her fist around the tile. “What would happen to me?”

“I don’t rightfully know, but your guide exists for a reason. No living human has ever been separated from their guide and I would think, if they were not reunited within a short amount of time, that they would become like Lilith… human, but changed, unable to go back to the Earth they once called home.” He paused and frowned. “Let us hope you never find out.” 

Ella looked over at Percy. He had his belly feathers fluffed up and had tucked one foot into them as he slept. It was ridiculous. He looked like a one legged puff, and Ella desperately wanted to hold him. 

Percy untucked his head. Chirped and churred, and started preening his feathers. 

“Spark. The thing that starts the conflagration. For demons, it is closely associated with the mind and the concepts of knowledge. We are the sum of our actions, but those actions begin in the mind.” 

“Knowledge is power, huh?” Ella replied, trying to find her equilibrium. 

He nodded. “Indeed.” 

He touched the white tile. “Knot. A problem.” He narrowed his eyes. “This is not one I normally see on the Spark point. It is more frequently placed elsewhere.” He shrugged. “You are a living human, and I have read the tiles for living humans on their journey before. The tiles always speak differently when it’s not about one of the Shedim.” 

“What did Dante’s tiles say?” Ella asked, curious. 

“Many things that no longer matter. But we are not reading the tiles for Dante. We are reading them for you.” Pursan tapped the red tile. “Crow. The messenger. The liminal. The in-between.” 

“That seems pretty straightforward. I’m in-between here in Hell, and I’m supposed to bring word of Hell back to Earth right?”

“Not necessarily. Whenever you think the tiles are telling you something, they will surprise you.”

Ella unclenched her fist. She’d been clutching the Flame tile tight. She opened her hand and looked at the indentions it had made on her fingers. 

The knot and the crow,” Pursan said. “A problem and the in-between. These tiles were placed halfway down the star. It could mean that your problem is between two groups, or that you are standing in between them. Crows are also clever birds, capable of solving problems. In addition to being messengers, they can also be spies. Their eyes are everywhere and they hoard knowledge. So beyond the liminal aspect, if could be that you will need to be quick and clever, your problem is a tangled knot and only someone who can see beyond it, who inhabits a liminal space can solve it.” 

Pursan touched the third point of the star. “Inferno. Shedim are born from the flame, and we all strive to return to it. To be immolated in the Inferno, so a new generation may arise. Destruction and creation in one. A sacred rite and ritual.” 

The last tile was set at the tip of the point. Pursan touched the white tile gently. “This is the rune for Prince.” He chuckled and sat back in his chair. He drummed his fingers against his deep chest. “Are you familiar with the Princes of Hell?”

Ella shook her head. 

“I mentioned before that there are many titles in Hell. Many demons, Shedim and Lilim alike, yearning to make a name for themselves. Prince was a title reserved for the first demons, those who followed Lucifer from the flames. Of their number only Mineos remains. You have met him, I believe?”

“Yup. Still kinda freaked out thinking about him, but yeah, we talked.” 

“He is the last of the Princes. The rest have consigned themselves back into the flames of their creation. This tile,” he tapped it again, “is a symbol tied strongly to command. For many demons, it’s the tile that ends up on the Fire point as they like to track how many generations removed from the Princes they are.” 

Strix clacked his beak behind her.

“Your friend is very young.” Pursan’s eyes slid back to Strix. “I am guessing you are far from the first.” 

Strix bobbed his long neck, so his head brushed against the top of Ella’s. 

“I am ten generations removed,” Pursan said. He laughed. “I am considered quite old, even though there are demons who are far older than I. Malphas, the demon who’s body you just analyzed, was of the second generation. Very old. Very revered, but not as much as the Princes themselves.” He looked sad for a moment, as if the weight of all his years was bearing down on him and Ella’s fingers twitched, the urge to hug strong. 

“The Prince tile on the Inferno point… command and reverence. It’s a tile steeped in connotations of power.” He tapped the red tile. “Awakening.” He hummed. “I’ve never encountered these two tiles together. An awakening of power possibly, be it your power or someone else’s.”

“I don’t have power.” 

“Nonsense. You are a living human in hell, chaos follows wherever you go. Your very existence here can tip the scales one way or another. Who’s holding those scales, and who those players are remains to be seen. Be wary. Your natural optimism could draw you into a trap you cannot see. You will face power, darkness, and isolation. Hold tight to the flame, and it will see you through.” Pursan bared his teeth. “Keep the flame tile. I had this set made after Dante visited, and I gifted a tile from my previous set to him as well. Hold it tight. These are the last readings this set will do.” 

“Are you sure?” Ella set the red tile down on the table. 

“A gift, to remind you of that which you hold most dear.” 

Percy untucked his head and fluttered to Ella’s shoulder. He chirped into her ear and rubbed his feathery head against her cheek. Strix placed his taloned hand on her opposite shoulder, a reassuring weight. 

“Thank you,” Ella said. She picked up the red tile and slipped it into her pocket. 

Pursan nodded. “Now, I believe you have dallied long enough. Your journey awaits. I will see you safely to the gate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An entirely Ella centric chapter this time. Woof. I'm glad it's up, it was a hard one to write.


	11. Among the other primal creatures gladsome

Lilith was not difficult to find. 

Human pregnancy was not an area where Lucifer could claim much expertise, but he knew enough about Lilith’s brand of pregnancy to know where she’d be. When she got that large, she would disappear into her rooms, doing whatever it was that pregnant people did when they were about to spawn. 

Lucifer wasn’t adverse to pregnancy. He’d had many a delightful romp with pregnant women on Earth. There was one ravishing beauty, oh, back in dark ages of Europe who’d been more than happy to bed him while she was pregnant. Quite literally in a pile of hay. She’d been wonderfully adventurous and had the most exquisite reactions. 

Lucifer’s problem wasn’t pregnancy in and of itself. His problem was _Lilith’s_ pregnancies. 

They were, quite frankly, strange and disturbing. Some of her offspring looked rather close to human. He assumed her newest demon would look human-ish, judging by how it moved under Lilith’s skin. Linda’s belly at the end of her pregnancy had moved and roiled just as Lilith’s was wont to do when she was near the end. 

She’d once laid eggs. Even Belial had looked aghast at that one. She possessed a truly terrifying biology. He wasn’t sure what Dad had been thinking. 

Although, he had to admit, having demon children around did make for entertaining torture. Belial had once let Lilith’s youngest children rampage through a few Hell loops in order to torment their residents, and it had worked like a treat. Thankfully they knew better than to try and touch him, the sticky miscreants. 

“Lilith!” Lucifer called. He knocked on the door. “I understand you’re sulking about Belial, but come now, I’ve information for you.” 

No answer. 

“There’s no need to be so dramatic about it. Let’s talk.” He waited. “Dearie me, I don’t know why I put up with this.” He put his hand on the door; the locking mechanisms gave way, and Lucifer strolled into Lilith’s quarters. 

Her quarters, like everywhere else in the palace, were a hollowed out lava tube, but one that was carved with decorations. Little naked figures gamboled together across volcanic rock, entwined in a multitude of sexual positions, displaying an astonishing flexibility. 

Lucifer strolled around the empty room. The pride of the place was a bed big enough that it could have housed a small family among its sheets; drawers burst with clothes and jewelry, and plush tapestries adorned the walls in an attempt to bring some color into the dreary place. The little carved figures sexed their way around the room wherever the rock was visible. 

One tapestry was askew at the slightest of angles. Lucifer frowned. Lilith was impeccable about her belongings, the result of having lost so much when she left Adam, and again when she was cast down to Hell. 

He twitched the tapestry aside, and smiled. 

* * *

Ella coughed and wheezed. Her eyes watered as sulfurous fumes wafted through the air. She wrinkled her nose, tried to take a deep breath, and gagged. Rotten eggs and dying vegetation coalesced into a scent that made her lungs protest and her eyes want to call it a day. 

She wasn’t going to eat an egg ever again. No more chickens for Ella. 

The landscape was various shades of beige. Tufts of dead grass dotted the ground and little stinking ponds of water created a maze of muck. The sky was a sickly yellow and a low miasma hung over everything, making visibility at any distance difficult. 

She stumbled after Strix, her legs still feeling like rubber from their most recent circle hop. Strix, the dumb bird, strolled along completely unaffected, like usual. Ella glared at his back. Stupid human body and its stupid human aversion to crossing different planes of existence. This never showed up in the books or tv shows she watched. The heroes always walked out looking super cool and put together, and here she was, wallowing in mud and trying to remember what it was like to have skin. 

The ground squelched under Ella’s feet. One particularly mushy area gave way, and she collapsed on her knees as her left leg sunk into the mud. 

Percy landed on her shoulder and twittered into her ear as she worked her leg free. The hot mud squished between her fingers. Her right leg sunk further into the mud, joining her other trapped leg. Ella sloshed through the mud, probably looking like a weird human-ish crab as she tried to free herself. 

She huffed and looked up at Strix. He’d found one of the few bits of dry ground. His facial disc was ruffled out and his head tilted. He clearly thought she was the height of entertainment. 

“Can I get some help?” 

Strix’s feathers fluttered. 

Percy chirped from his perch on top of her head, the only part of her that wasn’t covered in grime.

Ella narrowed her eyes. “Afraid of a little mud?” She managed to pull her legs out of the mud and belly flopped her way towards Strix, feeling like she should make demented seal noises along the way. Although judging by the disgusted look that flickered across Strix’s owlish face, that probably wasn’t the best idea. She didn’t want him thinking she was too crazy. 

At least the mud was warm. Why was there so much mud in Hell? The Third Circle was one big mud ball and this place… with its ponds and rotting vegetation wasn’t much better. 

She scrambled to her feet and grimaced down at herself. Her clothes were a wreck. They hadn’t quite recovered from her last roll in the mud... oh, and getting pulled over a cliff by a troll.

She flicked mud off her fingers and ran her hand over her hair. Percy squawked at the disturbance and hopped off her head and over to Strix. He landed on the perplexed demon’s head, his little feet sinking into feathers, and bobbed his head at Ella. 

“I am the mud man,” Ella declared. She lifted her arms and made claw motions with her hands. 

“Are you… okay?” Strix asked, sounding unsure and as if he wanted to back away and run. 

“Oh, fine. Just coming unhinged. It’s fine. I’m totally fine.” Ella laughed—cackled. It was a cackle, she had to be honest with herself, she was not normally this high pitched. “Becoming one with the mud and all.” 

Strix nodded, his facial disk flattened against his face. 

They set off through the soggy landscape. Strix leading and Ella squelching along behind him. 

Hell was a weird place. It had defied her expectation so far, not that she had many besides ‘fire’ and ‘torture’ and ‘eternal torment’. Maybe some black rocks with cackling demons and lots of screaming in flames. Granted, she’d only made it to the Fifth Circle. There were four more circles to go and oh yeah, the Devil. Good times. She had the best luck. Yay her. 

They passed little bubbling mud pots and Ella grimaced, grateful she’d starfished her way through the mud when it wasn’t boiling hot. 

Hell was more… like a dark mirror version of Earth. There were moments she was forcibly reminded of places that existed back home, but in Hell it was like the worst parts of Earth were accentuated.

And the doors. Always, wherever they went there were doors. The Fifth Circle doors were set into the mud, some of them practically horizontal and almost covered completely in sludge. Those muddy doors looked old, and Ella cringed at the thought of the torments they contained. 

She tried not to think about it. 

Strix put an arm out in front of her and Ella stopped. The puddle in front of her was still and silent. Strix’s neck swiveled her way, and his yellow eyes were large. “The water is hot. Be careful where you step.” 

Ella peered over his arm. The puddle was more of a small pond. Tiny white bones bleached from the heat of the water littered the bottom. 

“Gotcha. I’ll try to keep my feet dry. HA! Dry. What a concept. I will keep them muddy and gross rather than roasted off stumps.”

Strix bobbed his head in acknowledgement. 

They continued on, skirting the edge of the pools and trying to stay to the narrow strips of muddy ground that separated the bodies of water. 

They moved slowly and tried to avoid stepping in water. One run-in with the edge of a superheated pool had left the plastic of her shoes more toasty than she would like. She was operating under the assumption that all pools of water were superheated until proven otherwise. 

They walked past steaming fumaroles. Water vapor spouted into the air and obscured the landscape. Ella squinted as they skirted around the edge of one hissing, spitting pile of rocks, steam coming off it in waves. 

Bones loomed in front of her. 

Ella’s eyes widened as she looked at an absolutely massive rib cage. The bones were bleached white. She reached up and touched an arching rib. 

Strix hissed. His feathers were damp from the fumaroles, and he was the picture of misery. “A dragon. Long dead by the looks of it.” 

“This is so freaking cool. Dragon bones, Strix! Even bigger than the one in the Fourth Circle. I have so many questions.” 

“We have ground to cover. We should keep moving.” 

“Yeah, yeah, give me a moment. It’s not everyday I get to look at dragon bones up close. Oh man, I wish people back home would believe me when I tell them about this.” 

The dragon had died in a contorted position, or had contorted postmortem as the gases released from its body. Its giant head was thrown back, and it was tilted onto its side so one half of its ribs arched towards the sky, what would have been the soft part of its belly exposed. 

Ella poked at the still decaying cartilage discs between the vertebrae of its neck. “I would kill for my camera right now. I am dying to document this. An entire dragon just laying here!” She followed the vertebrae up to its massive head. 

The head was longer than she was, and its teeth were enormous. She held up a hand next to one and marveled at how tiny her hand was compared to the long, serrated tooth. She placed her hand on the top of its nose and peered into its empty eye sockets. “You beautiful thing, I want to run all the tests on you.” 

Percy landed on the top of its head and bounced down until he was directly above the orbits where its eyes would have been. He fluttered into one of the giant eye sockets and started trilling from inside the skull. He was clearly delighted with himself. 

“Where there is one dragon, there could be more. We must keep moving.” Strix’s long neck was snaked back, his facial disc turned towards the sky. 

Ella glanced up at the pea soup masquerading as atmosphere. “Yeah, you’re right.” She patted the dragon on the nose. “You are a super awesome dead thing.” 

She walked along the lines of its neck until she reached its wings. It was lying with both underneath it, and the uppermost wing, the one not driven into the ground, was completely shattered. The giant humerus was shattered like it was a twig and the bones of its forearm twisted into a mess of jagged bone. 

Strix hissed. “I have heard of this dragon.” 

Ella raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like you have a story.” 

“It’s from when I was newly out of the flames some hundreds of years ago. Him Below had been gone for some time and the realm mourned his absence. Many wondered if he had forsaken us. It’s not known why, but some of the Lillim rebelled, and Him Below returned to Hell. His judgement was swift and severe. Dromos, the ringleader, was made an example of and his body hung from the ramparts of Dís until it decayed. Some of the Lilim escaped and took refuge in the outer circles. A few kidnapped a Harasha and forced it to bind a dragon to their will, convinced that not even The Devil could withstand the might of the great beast. Him Below pursued the Lilim and they unleashed the dragon over the swamps of the Fifth Circle.” 

“I don’t think it ended all that well for the dragon,” Ella said, looking at the shattered wings.

“No. The Lilim misjudged. The beast was a great dragon but Him Below is _The_ Dragon. I am told they battled on the wing, through fire and flame. The battle lasted for days, and in the end, the beast lay bloody and broken in the swamp. Him Below’s rage rattled Hell itself and the last of the rebellion was destroyed.” 

“Sucks to be them.”

“Yes. It… _sucked_ , or so I was told. But our King was victorious and the realm rejoiced.”

Strix walked on and Ella followed. She looked back at the broken bones and shuddered. What kind of force would it take to break something like that? The dragon was well over fifty feet long. Its teeth were sharp, the claws on its feet curved and deadly. Even its bones were thicker and heavier than she would expect for something that could fly. She would need to take precise measurements and crunch some numbers but if Strix’s story was true… she really hoped that the Devil would be looking the other way when it came time to go home. 

“Percy!” she called. “Come on, buddy!” 

A peep reverberated from inside the skull. Percy hopped onto the eye socket, cocked his head, and fluttered after her. 

* * *

Lucifer pushed his way through dense foliage. Tree limbs bent under the weight of their fruit, flowers bloomed in a multitude of shapes and colors, brightly colored birds chased each other overhead. He followed a little gurgling stream through the garden. 

He clenched his teeth. He knew this place. The stream. The profusion of life. He’d been here before, in ages past. 

Eden. 

Of course it was Eden. 

Someone giggled. Followed by a throaty laugh. 

He knew that laugh. 

He knew that giggle too. 

He ducked under a tree branch and pushed aside the hanging vines. The stream bubbled over the edge, cascading into a pool below. 

He narrowed his eyes. 

Water rippled and splashed as two women giggled together. One woman, large and pregnant, licked up her companion’s neck and nipped the corner of a jaw teasingly. The smaller woman, curvy with long dark hair, moaned as a hand worked its way down her body, over breasts, a taut stomach and in-between spread thighs.

“Is that better?” Lilith asked. 

Eve moaned.

Lucifer raised his eyebrow. Eve wasn’t dead. He liked to think he would know if Eve descended into Hell— if any of his humans were in Hell. Even if Eve did end up in Hell, she wouldn’t be sequestered away in Lilith’s personal _pleasure_ loop. The simulacra of Hell were remarkable, and it looked just like Eve. But Lilith hadn’t quite captured her. Lilith didn’t know that Eve always tipped her head back to the left, that her moan always started off small and barely there, as if she was afraid to make her pleasure known, that it would become louder and throatier. This was close, but this was no Eve. 

“There is no changing Adam,” Lilith told Eve. “He is who he was meant to be, who he was _made_ to be. The only person you can change is yourself, and do you really want to change for a man?”

Eve squirmed. “I don’t even know who I’m made to be,” she breathed. 

“Be who you want,” Lilith told her. “Be with _who_ you want.” Eve groaned and one small hand cupped Lilith’s enormous belly, urging Lilith closer. 

Lucifer cleared his throat and stepped into the clearing. “Lilith!” He grinned and rocked back on his heels. “I had no idea you had a thing for Eve!” He shook his head. “Like mother like daughter, I suppose.” 

“My King,” Lilith said, snippily, her fingers played across Eve’s olive skin, making the other woman moan. “I have no idea what you mean.” 

“Hm, no, I suppose you wouldn’t. Pity, really.” Lucifer studied the tableau the two women made twined together as they were: Eve in the throes of passion, and Lilith, pregnant and huge and wrapped around Eve as much as her body would let her. “Goodness, this is quite the conflicted erection.”

Lilith leered. “You could join us…” She danced her fingers over Eve’s breasts. 

“Dearie me, no. Although, I must say this room is truly inspired." He glanced around the Hell loop. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Modified for comfort and pleasure. How ever did you manage that?”

Lilith disentangled from Eve and stretched out in the pool. Her large belly and heavy breasts were little islands in the burbling water. Her belly shifted and rippled of its own accord. The slight outline of a hand pressed against her skin. 

Lucifer grimaced. 

“ _Angels_.” Lilith said, her hand pressed back against her belly. “Always so squeamish.”

Lucifer glowered. “I am no such thing.” 

Lilith pushed herself upright, leveraging her bulky body against the edge of the pool so she could haul herself out. The loop reset and Eve vanished. Lilith stepped out of the pool, still wet and dripping. Lucifer looked down at her. The sweep of her nose, the smattering of freckles, her long eyelashes. Her angry glare. 

“I have done nothing wrong. You were gone, _playing_ with humans and what did I have to do with my time? So many Hell loops, so much torment.” She glared and ran a hand through her long wet hair. “Hell itself is my torment, so I learned how to make it better for myself.” 

“ _Better_ ,” Lucifer said. “Does better include having Belial do your dirty work?”

“I’m assuming you found him; do tell—what has he been up to? I’ve had to resort to other means, and I am very put out about it.” 

“Oh yes, so put out you’re in a Hell loop seducing your ex-husband’s second wife.”

“It’s not like she’s real,” Lilith shot back. “You of all people know this.” She gestured at the lush garden. “This is but a hollow simulation of something that once existed, and Eve is simply a made up puppet. It is hardly satisfying.” 

“So you slaked your satisfaction by having Belial kill Malphas?” 

Lilith took a step back, as if struck. “Malphas is dead?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Lilith.” 

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “The old goat is dead and you think Belial killed him? What insanity is this?” The disbelief in her voice was palpable, and she looked at Lucifer as if he’d been dropped on his head one too many times if he believed such things. 

Lilith had always been a talented actress. 

“I found the body myself. Belial was the last one in the room with Malphas, and he had a talisman.” Lucifer tilted his head, took a step forward, and looked down his nose at her. “Tell me what you know, Lilith.” 

“I know nothing, My King.” 

“Somehow I doubt that.” He looked her in the eye. “Tell me, what do you desire?” 

Lilith glared. Lucifer rarely pulled at her desires. She was excellent at making his life, well, Hell, if she thought he’d overstepped her boundaries. But something was going on, and Lilith was usually the spider in the web of palace drama and intrigue. 

“Come now, Lilith,” Lucifer purred. “You know you want to tell me.” He could feel his power ensnare her, could feel it tug and pull. She wanted to tell him. He could feel it.

“What I desire,” Lilith said, she licked her lips and her tone slipped into a dreamy cadence. “Is for Belial to fuck me so hard I can’t walk straight. 

“Yes, yes, we are all aware. But there’s more, isn’t there Lilith, more than just your lust.”

She gazed up at him, caught in his gaze. “I want to make my own choices in life. I want to be under no man’s thumb.” 

“But what else?” Lucifer urged.

“What else?” Lilith’s eyebrows drew together. His hold slipped and she blinked, coming back to herself. She crossed her arms and bared her teeth in a grimace. “Isn’t that enough?” she snapped. “Or is it only enough for the vaunted Lucifer Morningstar? Or am I mistaken about the _little_ rebellion that landed you here?”

He looked upwards and sighed. "Yes, yes, the parallel has always been striking. Both cast out for giving Dad the bird, but past aside, I have a dead duke and a general who’s missing, who looks very guilty, and I want to know why. You have your sticky fingers all over Hell; of course you know something.” 

Lilith crossed her arms under her breasts and glared up at him. This wasn’t the first fight they’d ever had, nor was it going to be their last. Lilith enjoyed court politics and intrigue, she practically ate it for breakfast, and he mostly left her to it, not caring enough to mediate her squabbles. 

When Lilith arrived in Hell, she’d been something different. Humans hadn’t yet taken up residence in the Hell loops, and she’d been a source of curiosity and scorn for the Shedim. Lucifer had extended his protection, recognizing someone else dear old Dad had screwed over, and Belial had taken her under his wing so to speak. 

She’d introduced demons to the pleasures of the flesh, as well as a much younger Lucifer. They’d slept together only once, and it hadn’t been his finest showing. Hell and pleasure were not conducive for any kind of escape, at least for him, and he’d been left shaken by how easy it was to get swept away by the undercurrents of Hell when he let his mind drift. 

Orgasms were not a thing he particularly enjoyed in Hell. 

Best to leave that to Earth. 

Not that he would be enjoying Earth’s pleasures anytime soon. There was too much at stake. 

And he had demons who needed to be brought in line. He had a murder to solve. Malphas and Belial were old. They were almost as old as Hell itself and some of the few demons he was actually fond of. He wasn’t about to let this one go. 

Lilith ran her hands over her belly, cupping the bulge and caressing her skin as it rippled and moved.

“What have you heard?” Lucifer ground out. 

“There’s unrest.” Her fingers fluttered up and over her breasts. Lucifer cocked his head and ignored her blatant attempt to draw his attention to her assets. “There has been for some time. Belial does not share much with me.” She grinned. “For some reason he doesn’t trust me.” 

Lucifer hummed. “You do rather enjoy setting up plots for him to foil. Strange sort of foreplay, but I’m not one to judge.” 

Lilith clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels, causing her chest and pregnant belly to jut out even further. Lucifer ignored her posturing. She was always posturing. Everything was a game to her. Even her relationship with Belial was more of a mutual game of cat and mouse than anything else. Or maybe praying mantis eating the head off of her lover. Lucifer had never worried about Belial betraying him. His demons were, for the most part, extremely loyal, especially the Shedim. It was practically hardwired into them, and who was Lucifer to deny Belial the pleasure of a good conflicted hate fuck. 

“Surely you have some idea of why Belial was so worked up?” 

Lilith looked beyond him, into the green jungle with its chirping birds. She tapped a finger against her lips.“This is something else, something _different_. He wouldn’t tell me what, but it isn’t one of my machinations. I don’t know who’s behind it.” Her lips formed a perfect pout. “Plus, I’m so near my time; you know I don’t like to plot when birth is imminent.” Her fingers splayed across her belly. “And you know I don’t care to be unattended.” 

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “You’re always plotting, Lilith; giving birth has never changed that. Be honest now, you suspect something.” 

She shook her head. “I know my word means little to you, but I can’t imagine why Belial would kill Malphas. If he was planning it, he said nothing to me.” She smirked and stepped closer. Her fingers danced up his tunic. 

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at her, but did not move. 

“I serve at the King’s _pleasure_ ,” she said, a simpering quality to her voice that made Lucifer’s jaw clench. Her hand slid down to his trousers. 

He stepped away. “Yes, I rather see that you do.” 

“Let me serve my King, let me find these secrets for you.” 

“You? Part with your secrets willingly?” Lucifer scoffed. 

“For you my King, always.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “I would have no place without you. I owe you everything I have.” 

“Cut the simpering, Lilith. It does not become you.” 

Lilith pouted. “Do you know that my children listen for your name in the Hell loops? Damned humans remember you and are so eager to talk. There’s one little soul,” Lilith snapped her fingers like she was trying to remember. “ _Delilah_ , I think her name was. She sang like a pretty little bird when your name was mentioned. She told us all about you.”

Flames lit in Lucifer’s eyes. Lilith ignored them and carried on. “There are more. Cain’s Hell loop was… a revelation.” She licked her lips. “What a pleasure to have a matched set in Cain and Abel. Do you know their loops are right next to each other?” 

Lucifer growled low in his throat and a frisson of fear lodged itself in his stomach. He needed to check on Cain. To see exactly what had tantalized Lilith so much. He squashed the fear down; it wouldn’t do to give anything away. He couldn’t trust Lilith to be honest. Her mind was plans within plans, as it had always been. “This is what you do with your time?” he said. “Have your children chase mentions of me through Hell loops?” 

Lilith shrugged. “You are the King, and you were gone for so long.” She stepped forward. “We are but your humble servants.”

“Humble isn’t a word I thought you were familiar with.” 

Lilith smiled, big and bright. “I’m full of surprises.” 

“Yes, Hell is up to its eyeballs in your _surprises_ , and now they seem to be stalking me.” 

“Not stalking you, never, my King. Simply trying to… anticipate your _needs_.” 

“I’m perfectly capable of seeing to my own needs, Lilith. I’ll leave you to see to yours.” Lucifer spun on his heel and left the strange Hell loop, leaving Lilith to her simulations. 

* * *

Lucifer opened the door to Cain's loop and stepped into the precinct. 

It was a punch to the gut. Uniformed officers bustled around. Detectives were bent over their desks hard at work. The simulacra moved around him like water flowing around a rock. He was barely there, unnoticed. They went about their business, and he stood rooted to the spot. 

This was his first visit to Cain’s loop. There’d been no point previously, or so he’d thought. Cain was one of the many damned souls he had dominion over, but he felt no need to rub salt in the wound. No need to torment himself with whatever, or _whoever_ , he may find lurking in Cain’s loop. 

He was a fool to think he could hold this visit off indefinitely. If Cain was twittering away to his demons, to _Lilith_ , he needed to know what secrets he’d spilled. 

He'd give up his throne, his power, his wings, his titles, all of it to be back here. To be back amongst his humans, solving homicides, stealing Dan's pudding, listening to Ella rattle on about a TV show she'd just watched, to be with the detective. 

He wanted her to roll her eyes at him once more. 

Hell tugged at him, a welcome reminder that this was a Hell loop and not Earth. Not the place he missed so very much. And a very particular Hell loop at that. 

It would not do to stand around and gawk. He adjusted the sleeves of his tunic, pulled his shoulders back and strode through the busy precinct as if he owned the place, because this was Hell, and he did. 

The floor didn't squeak like it should under his boots. Granted, his shoes were hell-made rather than Louboutins, but being here, looking like this. He didn't fit. He fiddled with the elaborately embroidered cuffs of his tunic. They were starting to fray from wear and tear. 

The Lucifer of Los Angeles wouldn't be caught in something that was frayed, and yet here he was, in once fine clothes that were showing their age. 

He should be ashamed of himself. 

All he had to do was follow the line of people to find Cain. Men, women, and children from all walks of life, all time periods, all lined up with faces set into positions of anger, sadness, and rage. 

He skipped the line and stepped into the interrogation room and raised his eyebrows. Marcus Pierce sat at the metal table, his wrists handcuffed together. The fake Sinnerman sat on his left, Charlotte Richards on his right. The piece de resistance of the tableau was Chloe Decker playing tonsil hockey in the corner with.... himself. He raised his eyebrows and grinned, the Lucifer simulation had a chair tipped back, one foot on the floor, and the detective was sprawled across his lap, her fingers in his hair, and her tongue down his throat. It made him ache for what could have been, for everything he could have had and had given up in order to keep her safe. 

Ms. Lopez occupied the opposite corner. She shook a box labeled "Insults" and pulled out a small blue piece of paper. She smiled, big and bright, opened the paper and read out. "Whenever I look at Marcus Pierce's arms, I want to vomit." She tossed the slip of paper on the floor and pulled out another one. 

A woman Lucifer didn't recognize sat in the chair opposite Pierce. Her pale skin looked wan in the precinct lighting. "I gave my son into your care," she told Pierce in Old English. "And you threw his life away. He was everything to me." She shook her head and pulled a worn apron to her face. "You are an evil man and deserve to rot for what you did." She stood up, smoothed her hands down her dress and shot him a look of pure disgust.

"Dearie me," Lucifer said. He flopped down into the chair the woman had just vacated and beamed at Pierce. "Are they all here for you?" he gestured at the door and the line waiting just outside. "What a naughty boy you've been, Cain. All that death and destruction." He tsked. 

Pierce shook his head, as if he was coming out of a fog. His eyes darted to the fake couple in the corner. “Lucifer,” he ground out. 

Lucifer threw his arms out. “In the flesh.”

Ms. Lopez drew out another card. “Your mother hated you and considered you a disgrace.” 

“Well, that part might be a teensy bit true,” Lucifer said. “She skipped her way out of Heaven after your death. We had the most delightful time. She could do this thing with her tongue… Oh, I’m remiss, this is the perfect opportunity for a joke.” He switched to an American accent and leered.“Your mama—” 

“What do you want, Lucifer?” Pierce said bitterly, cutting him off. 

“Oh, just checking in. I wanted to ensure you were getting your just desserts. A life like yours… all that murder, the mayhem, the sin…” 

“Rocks are dumb,” Ms. Lopez said from the corner. 

Pierce bared his teeth. “You’re only here because your demons keep coming to visit and you want to know what I’ve told them.” 

“They are terrible gossips, I will admit. I’m sure they enjoyed the show.” He gestured to Chloe and his duplicate snogging in the corner.

“They won’t shut up about you,” Pierce groused. “I should have never gone to Los Angeles. Ever since I’ve met you it’s been Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer.” He slammed his clenched and bound hands down on the metal table. “You are a blight on my life.” 

Lucifer clutched his chest mockingly. “Oh, a blight you say? I would think all those people standing just outside might say the same thing about you. You had lifetimes and you squandered it.” 

“So did you,” Pierce pointed out. His smile was nasty. “Or you wouldn’t be here right now. You’d be back at the precinct, with Chloe.” 

Charlotte leaned behind Pierce and whispered something at the fake Sinnerman. They both smirked. Lucifer pulled his eyes away. She was another one he would never see again. All the people in this room that he cared about, and the only one real was Cain. 

“Be that as it may, how are you enjoying the accommodations? Terrible experience? I do enjoy hearing our reviews. If they are anything over one star we’re doing something terribly wrong.” Pierce’s gaze promised evisceration and eternal torment if given the chance. Lucifer smiled brightly. “Have my demons been accommodating? Did they pull toenails for maximum pain? Maybe indulge in a little harmful sounding?”

“I should have double warded that freezer.” 

Lucifer leaned forward. “Now there’s something I’ve been wondering about. How did you figure out how to do that? Trapping the Devil. Many have tried, but you were the only one that accomplished it.” 

“As if I’d tell you.” 

“Who else are you going to brag to? Your adoring public out there? I think they’d rather punch you in the face and understandably so.” 

Pierce leaned forward, his cuffed hands clinked against the table. 

“Your father didn’t like you either,” Ella said. Chloe’s moan was filthy and wanton from the corner. Lucifer resisted the urge to look. 

“You say I squandered my life, but I’m no fool. I’ve delved further into the occult than you ever dreamed. Learned every spell, every trick I could to escape the prison of my life. Of course I figured out how to trap you. It was child’s play.” 

“And yet, you didn’t anticipate Maze.” 

“Neither did you,” Pierce pointed out. 

“Touché,” Lucifer replied. “So what have you been telling my demons? All kinds of naughty details I assume?” 

“Whatever they want to know,” Pierce ground out. 

“Lovely, I can assume the details of my earthly life are spreading throughout hell. Delightful.”

Pierce sneered. 

Lucifer sighed. He wasn’t ashamed of his life on Earth, but he preferred his demons not knowing much about it. It was his escape, and now it was even more imperative he stay in Hell. He couldn’t have nosy demons slipping past his edicts to investigate for themselves. Especially if they’d seen the display his duplicate and the detective were putting on in the corner. He really should have visited Pierce sooner. 

He had been, as Linda would point out if she were here, one rather depressed devil. Skulking his way through Hell loops. In trying to find a reprieve from his crushing responsibilities, he’d almost abdicated them altogether, and now those he cared about. Chloe, Ella, the precinct… he’d put them in danger once again. 

The demons were his responsibility and now they knew things he didn’t care for them to know. 

He glanced around the Hell loop. Demons had been modifying Hell loops since the first humans trickled into Hell. Cain’s brother was ground zero for their exploits, and it wouldn’t be too outside the realm of possibility to go even further. And what he wanted wasn’t terribly difficult at all. He concentrated and let Hell pull at him, he sunk into its inner workings and tweaked. 

Yes. It was doable. 

Lucifer smiled. “Back in a jif,” he told Pierce. He vanished from Cain’s hell loop and reappeared moments later with a terrified and crying Abel. 

Abel staggered away and caught himself on the table. His delicate olive features, so very reminiscent of Eve, went ashen at the sight of Cain. The two brothers stared at each other, frozen. 

The double sided glass of the interrogation room warped and twisted. The simulacra vanished, and a new Hell loop shimmered into existence. 

Lucifer beamed at the _Weaponizer_ set. Skyscrapers towered over the abandoned cityscape. A gleaming sports car idled behind Pierce. A rack of assault rifles was ready and waiting behind Abel. Lucifer plucked one of the weapons from the rack, pulled back the bolt and grinned at the round in the chamber. He flipped off the safety and handed the weapon to a stunned Abel. 

He spread his arms and felt the Hell loop settle. Hell practically purred in his ear. “Congratulations. You’re now the only Hell loop with two occupants. The two of you get to spend an eternity torturing each other.” 

Abel gawked down at the weapon. His hands fumbled along the trigger. The weapon went off, and he jumped, little chunks of concrete flying off a nearby building. 

Cain ducked, his hands over his head. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled. “He has no idea how to work that thing.”

“Yes, that’s rather the point.” Lucifer’s grin was sharp. “You get to enjoy an eternity of Abel murdering you as you murdered so many others. You’ll find any weapon you try to use, knives, guns, _rocks_ , will turn to ash in your fingers. Abel is your punishment, just as you were his.” He clapped his hands together, gleeful. “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

He turned and slipped through the door, a barrage of gunfire behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this earlier in the week, but 2020, as a year, has been kinda shitty and last week was the shittiest. Having a tire pop on the freeway is super DUPER awesome y'all, couple that with an elderly and cranky cat with a UTI and HOO BOY. I also donated blood today and am wiped out, so my big accomplishment is getting this chapter up. Anyhoo, it's all being sorted and I'm eager to get back to my coping mechanisms, aka fanfic.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a strange little idea that got away from me. This fic is going to be long and might be a little strange, but it wanted to be written. So here I am presenting my runaway idea to the masses. 
> 
> I've had so much help with this thing. It ate my brain and so many people held my hand while I wrote this beast.  
> Huge enormous thanks to [Matchstick_Dolly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchstick_dolly/pseuds/matchstick_dolly) for the beta as well as [ObliObla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla) and [TheYahwehDance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheYahwehDance/pseuds/TheYahwehDance) for running it through the wringer. 
> 
> Big thanks to [SpinnerDolphin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpinnerDolphin/pseuds/SpinnerDolphin) who helped me come up with some great ideas. I've enjoyed laughing myself silly over them. [ariaadaigo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariaadagio/pseuds/ariaadagio) for the encouragement and [Sarahmonious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahmonious/pseuds/sarahmonious) for being my emotional support beta. 
> 
> Yeesh, I feel like I'm giving an academy award speech and about to have music play me off. Seriously, the fine folks at Filii Hircus did a lot of handholding and I can't thank them enough.


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